F orum OF THE WEEK

COHOUSING IS about more than just getting a home for everyone in the group. It’s a housing model that puts a deliberate emphasis on community.

Originating in Denmark, cohousing is a collaborative effort from start to finish. People come together and decide they want to become neighbours. They go on to purchase land, plan a development, and manage their community.

While residents live in their self-contained homes, they share common amenities and decide matters affecting them by consensus.

According to the Canadian Cohousing Network, around 160 cohousing communities have been formed in North America since 1991. More than 100 more are being established. In Vancouver, the first cohousing community opened in 2016, and at least two more are on the way.

For those who want to know more about cohousing and how it works, Hive & House Consulting is holding a session on Saturday (November 24) at Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House (800 East Broadway). The event starts at 2:30 p.m.

The more fancy new pizza we see in Portland the more you have to hand it to Brian Spangler. The maestro’s neo-neapolitan-style pies with a thin-but-stratigraphic crust and hyper-flavorful toppings have been the best in the city since 2005. Spangler’s secrets are many, and include days of proofing for the dough, an electric oven that provides consistency you can’t get from wood, and a strict three-topping limit to ensure even baking. The rest of the formula is pretty simple. The salads are crisp, the beer list is small but well-curated, and there’s an arcade room to keep you busy while you wait out the lines, which are more manageable than legend suggests.

MARTIN CIZMAR. When a menu says “homemade,” it’s usually a Everything about Tusk, a spot that uses Middle euphemism. At Han Oak, it’s literal. The sideyard Eastern cooking methods to highlight the best and Korean spot behind the Ocean on Northeast brightest seasonal ingredients, is well-executed. Glisan Street is half open-kitchen restaurant, Omnivores and vegetarians alike are seduced by the half modernist loft where chef Peter Cho and his ever-evolving menu that features the best-tasting and family actually live. Most of the ever-changing most interesting salad…well, anywhere, served alongside menagerie of plates hover around $10, and simple but delicious meat and fish offerings. The always seem to include a plate of thick-breaded drink menu is equally polished and ensures that by and juicy Korean fried chicken. Elsewhere are the end of your meal you’ll be as blissed out as the delicate chive-pork dumplings, a beautifully salty massive photo above the bar depicting Keith Richards and crispy blood sausage drenched in over-easy floating in a pool. egg, and a Korean-chinese jja jang myun handpulled DONOVAN FARLEY. noodle dish made with fermented black beans. On the right night, when those thickly al dente noodles come with butternut squash that melts into the bean sauce, that jja jang murders every other version in town.

MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

Meet Bigfoot and Krampus! Taste the worm-topped ice cream! Brave the haunted doll house! Bury yourself alive! Photo-op the reverse-engineered alien autopsy! Equal parts outsider art gallery and threadbare curio shop, the Peculiarium exhibits a fun-sized hodgepodge of the bizarre that promises budget thrills as a veritable roadside attraction for side-street wanderers.

JAY HORTON. Writing publicly about this gem of a coffee house hidden in plain view feels wrong, but it’s been flying below the radar long enough now that its crowd of adherents shouldn’t feel at all threatened by the public knowing about its great desserts, espresso drinks and oldtimey ambience—which includes a novelty bathroom and motorized tables that spin so gradually you won’t know it until your drink is no longer in front of you. PETE COTTELL. Despite a gallery of sad-clown paintings and an animatronic eyeball in a vise, Creepy’s isn’t actually creepy. The bar is less horror house than self-consciously quirky sideshow—a design-happy display case of dolls, deer heads What do you expect to see in the middle of downtown in a semi-large American city? How about a pirate-themed, glow-in-the-dark mini-golf course in the basement of a Hilton? At Glowing Greens, you’ll enter through an inauspicious side door that may or may not be manned by a skeletal pirate, from which you’ll descend into a world of swashbucklers, zombies, mermaids, zombified mermaids and just about every other creature or theme you would think appropriate for a mini-golf course awash in the soft glow of ultraviolet light and the sound of pulsating EDM. WALKER MACMURDO. The historic Ladd-reingold House, built in 1910 by early Portland mayor William Ladd, is an attraction all by itself, with backward doors, secret hiding spots and a ceiling mermaid mural. It is also home to the Hat Museum. With more than 1,000 hats from vintage to novelty to modern, the museum boasts the largest collection in the country. Note: Reservations are required for the tour. PENELOPE BASS. Part classic video game arcade, part classic video game arcade-themed bar, the recently renovated Ground Kontrol now sports a retro sci-fi sleek bar to complement its dozens of mostly ’80s and ’90s throwback classics—plus a list of inexpensive cocktails to keep the gaming lively once the bar closes to little kids in the afternoon. WALKER MACMURDO. This massive, refurbished structure contains a hotel, multiple bars, pool tables, a cigar room, a movie theatre, a restaurant and an outdoor soaking tub. You can take your drinks from bar to bar as you roam the historic, circa 1915 elementary school—where original art and historic photos are preserved in the winding hallways. ELISE HERRON. Devils Point advertises itself as “Portland’s Rock-’n’-roll Strip Club.” Honestly, it’s harder to find a strip club in Portland that doesn’t cater to the rocker crowd. but this deep-red cubbyhole at the nexus of Foster-powell certainly leans into the idea harder than most. For instance, Stripperaoke is a Sunday night tradition where patrons live out their ‘80s metal video fantasies by singing “Girls Girls Girls” flanked by girls, girls, girls. It’s become famous enough to attract the famous, including Dave Chappelle, who stopped by to perform Radiohead’s “Creep” after a show in 2016. MATTHEW SINGER. It is an exceedingly strange thing indeed to say a hardware store is an attraction worth visiting whether or not you have anything to build, but that’s exactly what Hippo Hardware, the most Portland hardware store ever, is. Photographers have staged photo shoots in the store’s otherworldly environs, like the sea of vintage lights and chandeliers that make up the store’s top level. It’s the kind of place Tim Burton would swing by when finishing his kitchen remodel. DONOVAN FARLEY.

The Doug Fir, housed in the Jupiter Hotel, is a multifaceted facility with a