Once we made it to Portland, we stopped for a quick lunch at Grilled Cheese Grill, a food truck that was recommended by a friend of ours. Can you believe that I'd never actually eaten at a Portland food truck until this moment?! For shame!
The main thing I adore about Portland is that it's so vegetarian & vegan friendly. More of the sandwiches on the Grilled Cheese Grill's menu were vegetarian than not. I had a hard time choosing, but settled on The Cam...with BBQ tofu, pepperjack, pickles, red onions, and tomato on sourdough. Yum. Henry opted for the special...The Texas Turkey Shuffle.
We opted to sit outside since it was warm and sunny, but we could have enjoyed our grub in the school bus dining room. (Even better, you can dine in a double-decker bus at their other location!)
Afterwards we checked into our hotel and then rode the Portland Streetcar over to the festival, which was located downtown on the waterfront. The place was PACKED....Portlanders clearly love their craft beer!
Lines were very long, so we didn't get to try as many beers as we had hoped, but all of the ones we did try were great. A few standouts were Laurelwood's Portlandia Pils, Dogfish Head's Positive Contact, Fearless' Scottish Ale, and Oregon Trail's Lavender Ale. Yes, lavender beer...I did not think the combination of hops and lavender would work, but the floral note was just right.
By that evening, we were more than a little buzzed, and had to walk over to the Bridgeport Brewery to meet some friends for dinner, and, well...more beer. We made a pit stop at Jamison Square to cool our feet:
At the pub, we met up with our friends Matt, Lisa, Ngan, and Josef, who had driven down from Seattle to celebrate Matt's new car purchase. ( A pretty blue Subaru STi....now he and Henry are twinsies!) We ordered some sampler platters and big 20-ounce pints, and I dug into my Vegan Bowl...a blissful blend of organic quinoa, black beans, grilled organic local tofu, kale, sweet potatoes, edamame, red peppers, carrot salad, and spicy cashew sauce.
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(Vegan Bowl)
(Matt's new STi)
The next day, we headed out to do a little (tax-free!) shopping before heading home. We hit up the usuals like IKEA, Sur la Table, West Elm, and Anthropologie, and checked out a couple of architectural salvage stores as well: Old Portland Hardware and Salvage Works. Where else can you find an antique iron door from Egypt ($2200), a entire wall of door handle plates, or a DIY chicken-coop kit?
All of that shopping worked up quite an appetite, so we headed over to a place I've wanted to go to for a loooong time...Pok Pok, which is hailed as THE place to get authentic "street-food" style Thai cuisine. They were even featured on Portlandia in the "Allergy Pride Parade" skit. With all of that hype, the line outside was pretty long, but we were able to score seats at the bar right away. (One of my favorite "tricks" while dining out is eating at the bar...I often seem to get better service as well, since the bartender is usually close at hand).
We ordered the Khao Soi and Phat Si Ew, which were both delicious. The prices were also reasonable, with most prices around $10-$12. They also had several yummy-sounding cocktails, including a few that used Asian herbs and aromatics, but I kinda draw the line at paying $8-$10 just for a drink.
There was a food-truck "pod" across the street as well, so we ended our trip to Portland on a sweet note...by sharing a mini Brandy Peach pie from The Pie Spot, an adorable robins-egg-blue camper-turned-bakery.
With full bellies and a car full of tax-free purchases, we headed for home. It's been fun, Portland....may we meet again soon!
1 comment:
Awesome!! Wish we could have stayed another day.
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