For my third morning in Portland, instead of having another hotel breakfast, or doing a repeat trip to the excellent Becky’s Diner, I decided I needed to try something a little more, well, Offbeat. And due to my schedule, a place that opened fairly early (7am). This led me to a little spot in Portland’s west end, in a little building that used to be one of those small neighborhood grocery stores: Ugly Duckling.
Opening in late 2022, Ugly Duckling is one of those breakfast spots that doesn’t have a direct classification; at lunch, calling it a “luncheonette” would be a good description. At breakfast, it’s a bit of a coffeehouse. It’s also a bakery, having a nice selection of daily pastries, like canelés, eclairs, and trocaderos, and does a pretty brisk takeout business (while quiet and sleepy at their 7am open, by my 7:30am departure they had a regular stream of folks picking up pastries.
For those eating, or drinking, on-site, they’ve got a nice U-shaped lunch counter taking up most of the dining area, and some of the more interesting (and, as a photographer) challenging lighting: the theme here is “pink”, and they lean into it. Pink paint. Pink lighting. But it’s certainly fun and quirky.
But for me, while the pastries looked awesome (and I’ll have to swing back at some point to get some), the reason I came was a bakery item I don’t normally see made in-house, and that’s English Muffins. I adore a proper, fresh-made-on-the-griddle English muffin, and these are a specialty at Ugly Duckling, either just as muffins, or as the foundation of their many breakfast sandwiches. I opted for their Pastrami on Rye. While the resulting sandwich looked like it was bacon-laden, that wasn’t bacon. It was Ugly Duckling’s version of a Pastrami on rye, with house-made local beef pastrami (a drier-variety, and very concentrated in flavor), fried egg (still perfectly running yolk), aged sharp provolone, horseradish-red rye espresso aioli, and a rye-caraway English muffin. The rye muffin was a new-to-me concept, and worked really well: just the right amount of rye, the right amount of muffin fluffiness, and just the right amount of crispy crust. This was a perfect breakfast sandwich.
And the muffin was good enough I had to buy a 4-pack of their buttermilk English muffins to take home with me.
All-in-all, I really enjoyed Ugly Duckling. Good coffee. Great breakfast sandwiches, and outstanding house-made English muffins. I’ll have to make sure and return sometime to explore more of their menu.
