Portland for Arena #15: Screen Door's Chicken and Waffles, Cartopia's Tom Yum Fries, and Eem's Thai BBQ

Biscuits and gravy

Get: A sausage gravy biscuit, an egg and brisket biscuit, and smoked brisket

The kind of place we come back to every single time we're in Portland, and this visit reminded us why. The sausage gravy looked like a pile of goop in the best way, savory and warm, exactly what you want in 40-degree weather; the smoked brisket biscuit felt lighter than the fully smothered one but still plenty smoky and salty. Two entrees ran us $23, which felt like a steal for how filling it was.

Thai food cart

Get: Tom Yum fries and a satay fried rice with two skewers

Cartopia is the kind of food cart pod that makes Portland's cart scene worth the detour: burgers, and dozens of other carts, all just over the bridge from downtown. The Tom Yum fries were a first for us, curly fries in a sweet-and-sour, slightly sour sauce that had a nice idea but wasn't fully executed (we gave it a 5 out of 10). The satay fried rice with a yellow curry sauce was the better order of the two, a solid 7 out of 10, even if the rice itself came out a little too wet.

Burmese food

Get: A traditional tea leaf salad

The tea leaf salad (laphet thoke) was the draw: they offer a traditional version with fish sauce and a vegan one without, and we went traditional. It's a salad amped up with nuts and fermented tea leaves, sweet and savory at once; our only note was wishing there was even more tea leaf in the mix.

Arena food, Korean noodles

Get: A noodle dish at the Blazers game

Not a winner for us: way too much dark, salty sauce and no sugar to balance it out the way a good noodle dish usually needs. We gave it a 2 out of 10, one of the lower arena food scores on our whole quest.

Arena food, pizza

Get: The day's slice: cheese, garlic, and basil

This might be the best thing in the entire arena, and arguably the best pizza slice we've had at any NBA arena on this quest. Garlic and basil came through clearly for $8.50 a slice, a rare arena food win after some rough stadium food elsewhere on our travels.

Southern brunch, a Portland institution

Get: Fried oysters, a Cajun scramble, chicken and waffles, and a giant biscuit

Out of all our trips to Portland, we'd never made it here because of the line, until this visit, when we showed up 30 minutes before opening and were first in line for Sunday brunch. It's easily one of the most reviewed, highest-regarded spots in the city, and it delivered: the fried oysters came in a crispy, well-seasoned batter with a lemony tartar sauce; the Cajun scramble packed real pepperiness from the sausage and seasoning; and the chicken and waffles were lightly breaded with a buttermilk flavor, incredibly juicy without tasting greasy. The biscuit alone was ginormous and fluffy enough to steal the plate.

Thai-American barbecue

Get: Burnt ends with a white curry sauce, and a Thai-style fried rice with crispy pork and a fried egg

This might have been the best thing we ate on the entire trip. The burnt ends came with a creamy white curry sauce that reminded us of one we'd had in Texas, smoky, meaty, and only lightly curry-flavored, made even better once we followed the server's tip to hit it with a fish-sauce-and-pepper sauce first. The Thai-style fried rice with crispy, deep-fried pork and a crisp fried egg on top was A+, so good we said we'd come back just for these two dishes alone.

Fish and chips, seafood chowder

Get: A seafood chowder

Not an occasion we get back home very often, since the weather rarely calls for a seafood chowder, but this one delivered, small shrimp and all, for $8 with a piece of bread on the side. It needed a little something extra, but for the price, it hit the spot.