Portland August 2013- Gluttony

One of the best aspects of any vacation is the food. This was a spur of the moment trip and aside from everyone (friends, people in Portland, the shuttle guy at the airport) telling us to go to Voodoo Donuts, we had no clue where to eat.

Our weekend of diet busting gluttony began at LAX airport with the most overpriced breakfast ever.

A very early morning breakfast at Ruby's in LAX.

We each had a breakfast sandwich with no sides and a bottle of water. The bill was just shy of twenty. You could hear other patrons complaining about the steep prices vs minuscule sandwiches.

We had a good laugh reading the tips for Ruby's on Foursquare. Some of them are really hilarious and all of them mention the bad value. You expect airports to be overpriced, but this was kind of extreme. We would never go back there.

On the first afternoon of our trip, after recovering from The Bite of Oregon, we walked over to Voodoo Donuts and saw this line...

It wrapped around the street. We decided to try again later and satisfied our sweet tooth across from Voodoo at the Mix 'n' Match Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream.

Dan waiting to order at Mix 'n' Match Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream.

The way Mix 'n' Match works is you pick an ice cream base and then you pick a mix-in. I had maple ice cream with Captain Crunch, which was delicious. Of course it was almost more fun to watch the ice cream being made than it was to eat it.

Dan had vanilla ice cream with marshmallows and Lucky Charms for his mix-ins.

We spent the afternoon exploring the city on foot and found a great little bar for happy hour. Ringler's Annex Bar had a European feel (Dan's words) and we found a seat on the patio to have a beer and people watch.

I thought the box that held menus on our table was very cute and a little quirky, much like the city itself.

Dan was very happy to sit down and have a local beer.

The happy hour prices were really great and for the same price as our Ruby's breakfast, we had three beers and a pair of fancy sliders. Yummy food and an excellent value.

Mini pulled pork and beef burgers from Ringler's Annex Bar.

It was rainy and cold out, so after dinner we warmed up by grabbing lattes at a local coffee chain, Stumptown Coffee Roasters. When I visited the World Forestry Center, I learned that Portland earned the nickname Stumptown due to deforestation and logging.

Stumptown Coffee Roasters makes a really decadent latte and of course, pretty patterns in the foam automatically add to the perceived fancy-value of the drink!

We ate a buffet breakfast in the Marriott Downtown Waterfront at their restaurant, Truss. I liked Truss, because they had a giant glass pig on the host stand.

The breakfast buffet was small, but high quality. I had a really great custom made omelette and a lot of fresh fruit. The stand-out was the cinnamon roll muffin. I ate two.

We found a great chain restaurant for lunch called Noodles & Company. It turns out we have Noodles & Company in California, but I had not heard of it, because the nearest location to Glendale is in San Diego.

Dan had a spicy Thai dish and I had shrimp Pad Thai. The food was so good that I'm sure this restaurant will explode in popularity and come to Los Angeles. They had all sorts of noodle dishes from various regions of the world. It's the type of place that has something for everyone.

We took our afternoon coffee break at a coffee house used in the show Portlandia, Oblique Coffee Roasters.

Dan in front of Oblique Coffee Roasters.

The building that houses Oblique was originally a Victorian era mercantile.

The interior of Oblique is crazy with art covering the walls. There are objects mounted on the walls and hanging from the ceiling, including antique farming tools and creepy dolls. I couldn't focus on my conversation with Dan because I was too busy taking it all in.

Even though they are known for coffee and even had a huge grinder behind the counter, we ordered tea. They make a good chai latte!

We took a recommendation from my friend Carrie (Thanks Carrie!) and ate at Paddy's Bar & Grill for dinner.

Paddy's is a really beautiful Irish pub with dark wood booths and a very impressive amount of alcohol behind the bar.

Paddy's hold the World Record for largest Irish Coffee. 159 gallons!!!

The food was good too. I had a burger smothered in bbq sauce and Dan ordered fish n' chips.

Our final culinary stop was Voodoo Donuts. We had absolutely everyone tell us that we needed to go there. It is one of the top Portland destinations when you search the internet. If we didn't go to Voodoo Donuts, we would have left Portland feeling like we had missed out on a quintessential experience.

We had two unsuccessful Voodoo attempts before we finally stuck it out. The first time, we saw the long line wrapping around the corner and didn't even bother. We came back later that night and although the line was still long, we waited in it for about twenty minutes. The line barely moved and there were some unsavory people hanging out in the area. Although there are a lot of cool buisnesses near Voodoo, it isn't in the nicest part of downtown.

Our third attempt was in the afternoon. The line was still long, but not nearly as crazy as our first two tries. It took about forty minutes.

Here are some pictures of the exterior of the store. They are a mix from our various attempts. It was not only nicer to go during the day, but at night, you can't really see the pretty glitter paint on the exterior bricks.

Voodoo Donuts is completely nuts inside. I was conscious of fact that there was a long line, so I tried to soak it all in and snap a few pictures as quickly as possible. There are so many donuts to chose from that I highly recommend going on their website and taking a look at everything. We used our iPhones to peruse the menu while waiting in line.

I was surprised to discover that for a place so trendy the prices were cheap. We got four fancy donuts for six dollars.

The first one is their signature Voodoo doll donut that had a raspberry filling. It got a bit mangled in the bag.

My favorite childhood cereal was Froot Loops.

The lemon cruller was light and a completely unexpected texture.

My favorite was the maple donut with vanilla cream filling.

Was it worth the wait and hype?

Absolutely.

Hands down the best donuts that I have ever eaten.

Portland is a great city for "foodies". I look forward to future trips and future culinary adventures.

Portland August 2013- The Bite of Oregon

Sometimes the best parts of a trip are those that are unplanned. When we were driving to the Marriott Downtown Waterfront, we discovered that The Bite of Oregon food festival was taking place directly across the street from our hotel. I consider myself a "foodie" and love trying new things, but I had never been to a food festival. We were celebrating my birthday on the trip, so I picked the festival for our first meal in town.

The Bite of Oregon entrance fee was only five dollars a person. The vendors are cash only and although all of the sample prices were reasonable, we spent close to a hundred dollars trying everything. There is a bag check at the entrance and bottled water is not allowed. This wasn't such a huge deal, except for it was hot at the event, so staying hydrated is a must.

We kicked off our gorge-fest at The Original Shrimp and Crab Company.

The staff at The Original Shrimp and Crab Company were super nice and asked us about Los Angeles. Apparently I had the right answer when I declared no love for any particular Los Angeles sports team. I think if I had said the Lakers, I would have been kicked right out of the event! Dan and I shared a crab melt, which was probably the best thing that we ate at the festival.

Crab Melt covered in spicy sauce. So good!

Our second course was a stick of enormous chocolate covered strawberries from the BerryKa Bob booth.

The cutest booth was definitely The Honey Pot Sweet and Savory Pies.

The Honey Pot truck just makes me smile.

Beyond being adorable, The Honey Pot has delicious food. We shared their flight of mini sweet pies.

I've heard tales of places that offer tastings pairing cupcakes and wine. Unfortunately, this just seemed to be advertising the idea and not offering a sample.

Just as we were getting completely parched, we happened upon one of the beer gardens. Prior to our trip, I had read that Oregon is known for its great beers and is a place that takes beer very seriously. I was eager to sample the local offerings.

The Beer Tent (the most popular place at any event)

We tried three beers. Out of the three, the one that I really enjoyed was the Raspberry Wheat from Cascade Brewing. It was sweet and light, great for summer. I can't remember the other two samples, but they were not very good. Dan disliked them enough that I ended up drinking a majority of all three beers. I had a great afternoon!

We learned that the lottery in Oregon helps fund new companies. We tried their food samples. I don't know much about it, but it sounds like a smart thing to have some of the lottery revenue going towards helping local businesses.

Local companies that the Oregon State Lottery has helped fund.

Castello Cheese is amazing! We had a sample of brie with honey that was fantastic. If it had not been free, we would have paid to fill up on cheese. We wanted more, but didn't want to look greedy.

Castello Cheese Booth. Next to the beer tent, cheese is probably the most popular thing at the festival.

We saw a very impressive balloon hat.

The Rouge Farms booth gave us the chance to try beer crust pizza. It was okay, but in a sea of unusual food options, it wasn't a very special thing to picked to fill our limited tummy space. This was our one regrettable food choice. We had a slice of the salami with oyster mushrooms.

Pretty much anything with animals is a win. We sampled the FatDog Inc. spicy pretzels, which had a cat on the packaging. Smart branding to appeal to both dog and cat people!

Portland was crawling with Car2Go branded blue and silver Smart Cars. There are cars that you can rent by the minute and drop off anywhere in your neighborhood when you are done. It seems like a popular idea for a city where public transportation is so good that people don't necessarily need to own a car. The Car2Go company fills in for those occasional times when the convenience of car is helpful. Dan and I have two Smart Cars and I can vouch for their excellent trunk space. They may look small, but we have loaded them up with huge hauls from Ikea with no problems.

If I return to the event in the future, I will plan out my visit better and include some of the chef events. Something called Iron Chef Oregon has to be good. Maybe the challenge ingredient will be doughnuts from Voodoo?

On the opposite end of the beer garden, we found the wine and cider section. My favorite beverage of the day was a cider sample from the Portland Cider Company. The cider was so sweet that it almost tasted like a dessert. I am remiss in remembering the name of what I drank, but I would definitely seek out the Portland Cider Company and try their products until I found it. I wish that we had skipped the beer garden and gone straight over to the wine/cider area. The area had several wineries offering dollar pours.

One of the biggest food surprises was the Fish People Seafood booth.

The Fish People sell seafood entrees in pouches that are ideal for camping. I don't camp, but I like the idea of fancy camp food. I'd probably buy their products and make them at home. They were that delicious. I'm going to look for their products the next time I'm at Whole Foods.

We picked a lemon crepe from the Crepe Chalet for our final sample. It was light and sugary.