Hood River Hotel Insider

Out and about, livin’ the dream here in the Hood, you cross paths.

“Do you know a great place for breakfast?” someone will ask.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, we do,” we’ll say. “Lunch, too.”

Now, this may strike you as self-promotional (it’s our blog, after all), but we eat here, too, and happen to think you can get the best breakfast or lunch in town at the Hood River Hotel’s Cornerstone Cuisine.

We bring this up, because Chef Mark Whitehead has recently tweaked the menus. File for future reference.

First, the Luv Grub breakfast menu. From 7 a.m. seven days a week, we dish up a full menu of breakfast combos, benedict plates, omelettes, flat-top fare such as pancakes and French toast, and treats designed to unscramble your pained brains from the night before (OK, it’s out “hangover cure menu,” but everyone knows the best cure for a hangover is never getting one in the first place).

What might “cure” a hangover? Our chorizo sausage scramble, or the “S.O.S. Biscuits N Gravy” for starters. Or, straight from the Islands, a hamburger “loco moco” — with pan gravy on a fried egg atop mushrooms, onions and jasmine rice. Da kine, brah.

Late risers can tap our morning happy hour menu from 10 a.m. to noon. It includes the “loco moco” and “S.O.S.”, plus four other items not found on our regular menu — the Kountry Skillet, Billy Goat Omelette, Johnny Apple Seed Pancakes, and “Farm It” (vegetarian) Benedict. The thing about the Happy Hour menu is that all items are $8, a deal by any stretch.

Happy hour — without drinks? Of course not. Our beverage bar has been expanded to offer a variety of bloodys — or Marys — depending on your brand of shorthand. There’s the classic, or course. Or the Cornerstone Bloody, with shrimp on the stick. Like bacon? Love the Bakon Mary with  spicy Lyle Style mix, and real bacon with celery and stuffed olive garnish. We also offer Mimosas, screwdrivers and the Greyhound Bus, for people who need their citrus with a bump.

At 11 a.m. daily, our Gastropub lunch menu becomes available. It includes 15 tapas plates — try the bacon wrapped figs, or the Housin BBQ chicken drums (Or is that “drumettes”? Hmm).

For bigger appetites and broad budgets, the lunch menu also includes full plates ranging from the butternut squash soup for $6 to the Mixed Island Lunch of kalua pork, BBQ chicken drums, mac ‘n’ cheese and jasmine rice for $14.

There’s more, of course, but the point with which we’d like to leave you is, you’re not going to find this stuff at your drive-thru. Buon appetito.

Tags: Columbia River Gorge, Cornerstone Cuisine, gastropub, Hood River, Hood River Hotel, menus, Oregon dining