biwa happy

biwa izakaya


looking down into the dining room


a cute vintage volvo across the street

although rain was in the forecast for sunday morning, i was determined to have the yard sale anyway so lulu and i were up late tagging items for the sale and baking cupcakes and brownies for my little bake sale. when we woke up sunday morning, it was overcast but had not yet rained. i decided we would just take a chance and go for it. while we got a slow start, it tuned out to be a great sale. we sold a lot of our goods and the fundraiser bake sale was a success. as we took the last load of left over items into the house at 4 pm, it started to drizzle. so mother nature worked with us that day.

as it was a little chilly and overcast, my fellow yard salers and i wanted to end the day with something warm to eat. there is a restaurant in town that i have wanted to try for quite some time and it seemed like the perfect opportunity. the restaurant called biwa izakaya. izakaya is the term for japanese tavern food. they must have really fancy taverns in japan because it's nothing like the standard american tavern food of hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken and jo jos! the food was absolutely delicious. we had a japanese style beef tartare, gyoza, salad and bbq pork and rice. however, the highlights of the dinner were the big steaming bowls of udon and ramen soup. the soup really hit the spot after a chilly day outside and my table mates and i all agreed that it was nice to have a meal like this in july.

biwa is housed in the basement level of the former la luna theater. the la luna was a music venue in the 90s where many northwest bands played including the likes of nirvana to elliot smith. sadly, the la luna is no longer around but there are two great restaurants in the basement (i'll do a separate post for simpatica because it deserves one of its own). on winter evenings, the windows of biwa are so steamy you can barely see in and it looks like a speakeasy down there. so the next cool evening we have here in portland, head over to biwa for some delicious noodle soup.

oh yes, i can't forget to mention that they are open every night until midnight where they have a reduced price menu.
215 se 9th 503.239.8830
www.biwarestaurant.com