After our exciting trip to Seattle, we continued our food adventure as we headed off to Portland. Portland was one of the cities we were REALLY looking forward to and (especially around food) it was a great one.
We drove straight to our hotel only to find out that check in wasn’t until 4 so we needed to find a few things to do in the mean time. We started off with going to this restaurant called Salvador Molly’s. It was a Caribbean place and I got a little adventurous (for me). Although it was a bit spicy, the food was delicious and the place was pirate themed and pretty laid back. They also had quotes painted on the front wall of the restaurant that really moved me. Some did a good job summing up our trip thus far.
After lunch, we went to the Japanese Gardens. We expected it to be more of an open park so we brought our books and a blanket up only to find out that it’s a paid tourist attraction. It was well worth the $20 and we got an hours worth of peace and serenity. They had multiple Zen Gardens, which I really love and they reminded me of the Peace Pagoda back in Massachusetts.
We then headed back to the hotel to check in and get ready for our evening. Meghan’s friend from Albany moved out here a year or two ago so we took the opportunity to get dinner and tour Portland a bit with Huck and his girlfriend, Jen. They took us to some of the major foodie attractions and I may have ended the night looking like this, after I stuffed my face all night:
I seriously thought I was going into a food/sugar coma (and that I was going to vomit everywhere….) but I somehow survived.
They started off by taking us to dinner at a place called The Brunch Box, where you can get some massive concoctions of a burger, including using two grilled cheeses as your buns. Meghan and I tried to go big simply by getting Texas Toast as buns, but alas the burger gods had other plans. My burger came with the grilled cheese buns, but thankfully Meghan took one for the team and swapped half her buns for half mine so one grilled cheese each. We also splurged and got bacon and cheese fries. For the record, we have been eating delicious and healthy foods for the majority of this trip so my body was not ready for what was about to happen. Needless to say, I was unable to finish my entire burger and I needed to throw it in just before the last few bites.
(Don’t be fooled by the outside, there’s so much more behind the doors)
In order to digest the burger feast, we walked a bit around the city and ended up at Powell’s bookstore. For those that don’t know, Meghan and I love bookstores. Whenever we explore a new area, we typically find a nice used bookstore to explore. A major memory from when we first started dating included wandering around a used bookstore in Vermont. Powell’s, however, puts any other bookstore to shame as it is a 4-5 level new and used bookstore. We probably could’ve spent a few days holed up in there, but we tried to keep it to a minimum.
We restricted ourselves to getting one book each and a shared book despite the fact that Meghan found a million she wanted. I think I would go back to Portland just to spend more time at this bookstore.
After feeding our bibliophile side, Huck brought us to another Portland must: Voodoo Doughnuts. The only way to describe Voodoo Doughnuts is that it seems to be a bakery where a bunch of folks with the munchies came up with some crazy concoctions and realized other people would buy them. While some of the concoctions were a bit strange (including a doughnut covered in Fruit Loops), Meghan and I each got two (ahh!) that were a bit more on the normal side. Meghan got one called “Old Dirty Bastard” which had chocolate frosting, peanut butter, and Oreo’s as well as a Maple Bacon Doughnut (with literally two slices of bacon). I got a regular chocolate frosted doughnut as well as a “Dirt Doughnut” with vanilla frosting, chocolate chips, and Oreo. Needless to say, the doughnuts were delicious and they also resulted in the picture of me from the beginning, about to lay my head on the table and pass into a sugary oblivion.
We finished our evening with our goodbye’s to Huck and Jen as well as some majorly full bellies. Overall, it was a…filling evening with fun, friendship, and FOOD.
We got back to the hotel and went to sleep, ready to continue exploring Portland the following morning.
Pancake Tour of North America 