Feb 2009

Note--I have been slacking on our travel blog. Actually the reason is that I have been working on another blog, one that I update a lot more. Sorry that this blog has taken a backseat to the food one, but I'll try to do better.

Our second part of our Pacific Northwest trip back in August consisted of a couple of days hanging out in Portland and driving along the northern part of the Oregon Coast. We had been hoping to get out to this part of the nation for years now, but never had a chance till now. Since I had heard so many great things about Portland and Oregon from friends who had been there, I was excited to finally visit this West Coast state.

We left Seattle around 9 AM to miss the morning rush hour traffic and ended up getting into Portland around noonish right in time for lunch. Since we decided to skip breakfast that morning, our stomachs were ready to eat. Our first stop was Dan & Louis' Oyster Bar, the oldest family run restaurant in the city, and another Roadfood pick. We were not disappointed! I started my meal off with a delicious Bloody Mary (the menu had ranted about how it was the greatest--I would say it was pretty close) and a cup of their homemade clam chowder. I ordered the Crab Louis Salad (basically crab meat on a salad, lots and lots of crab meat that is), while Chris got a half order of the Cioppino (a mix of seafood in a tomato-based broth which was more than enough for hungry Chris). Everything was delicious and the seafood was extremely fresh. The walls of the restaurant were decorated with different plates. While I was getting up from our table, I noticed that a plate right above our table was this one.

After lunch, we headed to the Portland Art Museum for our cultural experience of the trip. While the museum was nice enough, I wasn't completely impressed by the collection and wished that we would have visited during a major exhibition (like the Rembrandt one the year before). But the gift shop was lovely (I picked up a few books--imagine that) and the museum was in walking distance of some shopping. We headed to the Nordstrom and hit a few other stores around the area (there is no sales tax in Portland!), but we didn't end up buying anything (don't worry, we'll make up for it later).

So we headed to Voodoo Doughnuts, where they have the famous bacon maple bar that you might have heard about on Food Network or on Anthony Bourdain's show. (I am drooling just thinking about it!) Yes, that is two pieces of bacon on top of a maple bar and let me tell you, it's DELICIOUS! Weird, but delicious!

After my gluttony (Chris isn't a big fan of doughnuts, so I had a few....I had to try them, right?), we headed to the Portland Rose Garden. It was in full bloom during our visit, so we were able see the gardens in their glory. There is also a decent city view from there and a summer concert was going on that night (we didn't stay because we had business to take care of...Powell's).

We tried to go to the minor league baseball game that night, but our pick in a restaurant ended up being one with very slow service and we missed an hour of the game before we got our check. But I couldn't complain because we were heading to Powell's Books. If you are a bookophile like I am, you would LOVE Powell's. It's the largest independent bookseller in the world and their store covers the entire city block! They sell both used and new books, so I was like a fat kid in a candystore and ended up with quite a few goodies to bring home. We ended up staying in the store for a couple of hours until our arms could carry no more.

On the second day, Chris wanted to take a roadtrip out to the coast to visit Astoria and Cannon Beach. But first, we headed to some of the lovely falls along the Columbia River Gorge (I did make sure that we stopped by Voodoo for a couple more doughnuts before we headed out). There are multiple falls along the route that you can stop at before you get to the big one, Multnomah Falls, which is the second largest year-round waterfall in the U.S.

After our trip to the falls, we headed back into the city to try out one of the famous food carts (they probably look more like trailers). For those who haven't been there, Portland has quite the selection of food carts, ranging from Mexican to Russian to Thai food. We opted for the Japanese one called Samuari Bento because the food coming from the cart looked pretty authentic and it had gotten a ringing endorsement from Hayao Miyazaki, Japanese movie director who won an Academy Award for Spirited Away. We weren't disappointed with our yaki soba (fried Japanese noodles) or pork cutlet curry.

With our bellies full of yummy food, we headed NW about two hours to Astoria. The Astoria Column was not open for climbing to the top that day, but views were still excellent from the parking lot . Then we drove down the Oregon Coast to Cannon Beach, which is famous for their haystacks . The temperature was only in the low 60's that day, so we weren't getting in that water (unlike some of the young kiddos). After Chris got his fill of sand and dipping his toes into the water, we headed back north to a small town called Seaside to eat at another amazing Roadfood find, Norma's Ocean Diner for some great clam chowder (it won some award from Bon Appetit), crab and sole--delicious!

We were disappointed that we missed out on trying some of Portland's many breweries and I was sad that I didn't get another chance to go back to Powell's for round 2, but it gives us an excuse to go back again in the future. I can't wait to go back!