Thursday, September 24, 2009

Portland-Part 01-The food

Hello! I'm back from my lovely vacation in Portland, Oregon! Actually, I got back super-early tuesday morning (red-eye flight, UGH), but I spent all day tuesday sleeping off those pesky timezones and just being generally lazy. Lots of fun was had; good food, good laughs, and pretty surroundings. Hooray! My camera sucks in low-light situations, so unfortunately there aren't any photographic evidence of a few tasty dinners that I had at Portobello Vegan Trattoria and The Farm. You'll just have to take my word for how yummy they were. Here's part one, the food pics, kinda out of order.

Doughnut from Voodoo Doughnut's traveling food cart! I happened upon them at a random Alberta street fair on saturday.

Vegan french toast from Juniors! Deeeelicious! It was pretty awesome going to a diner and being able to order french toast.

An average tofu scramble from Bijou Cafe.

A lovely glass of sangria from The Farm Cafe. This was the best dinner I had all weekend! Such a great restaurant, with the best atmosphere. It isn't strictly vegan, or vegetarian even, but they sure did the veggie options well. Nik and I shared a hummus platter appetizer and I had the Herb Crusted Tofu with Mushrooms Marsala as my entree. Mixed berries with vegan vanilla ice cream for dessert.

We drove to Cannon Beach on sunday and ate an adorable little cafe by the shore, called Sweet Basil's Cafe. I had the Portobello panini. Hit the spot after walking on the beach all day!

Lunch at Paradox! I had the mushroom veggie burger with sweet potato fries. I can't resist sweet potato fries. If they're on the menu, I'm ordering them.

Soft serve from Blossoming Lotus. It was Mexican hot chocolate, but they had another name for it that I can't remember right now. It was okay, but not as good as I remember their soft serves being.

Nik got the tofu avocado sammich and he was pretty mehh on it.

I got the raw pizza which I loovvvvvve. Have to eat it carefully, or everything falls off, but so yummy.


We chilled out at Deschutes Brewery for a bit on monday with some light food and their beer sampler. My faves were the Miss Spelt and the Ivana Weiss. Nik and I are total lightweights. Chips and salsa for food.



Elephant ear from the saturday market! Marionberry jam and powdered sugar as a topping. Sooo yummy. It's from one of the food vendors there, and if you ask for it with no butter, it's vegan. Hooray for sweets for breakfast!


Homegrown smoker cart. I have to say I was a tad disappointed in this. I was really looking forward to this all-vegan smoker cart, but everything just had a strange taste to it, due to the smoker. I got the chronic tempeh ribz and soy curls, with mac no cheese, beans, and cornbread as sides. The sides were amaaaaaaaaazing and I would go back just for those. Nik got a field roast chorizo and he felt the same way as I did about the smoked taste.



And last but not least, a cinnabon from Sweetpea!! This was the first place I went friday morning and it did not disappoint. Yum yum, I need to make some cinnabons soon.


I also went to Portobello Vegan Trattoria, but didn't get any pictures. This was on the top of my list for places to go, and it did disappoint a little. I thought it has real potential to be totally awesome, but everything just ended up lacking a little. Nik and I went a little crazy with the appetizers, ordering the pickle plate AND the cheese plate. Cheese plate was super-yummy and I would order that again, but the pickle plate was pretty bland and everything seemed to be pickled in the same brine (and what is UP with pickle plates never having any actual cucumber pickles on them?! I've never had one that did!). I got the Potato Gnocchetti with a Basil-Hazelnut Pesto for an entree, while Nik got the Manicotti. Both were yummy, but I thought the "Gnocchetti" were too large and thus a little bland, and Nik thought his needed to sit under the broiler for a good five minutes for ultimate yummy cheeziness. Calzones for dessert were the best part!! Sooo full.

More non-food pictures tomorrow! Hope everyone is lovely!

2 comments:

  1. That looks like a rad vacation - I can't wait to get myself to Portland one day.

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  2. All of this looks awesome (as all Portland food does), but what I love is that you went to Deschutes! That's so awesome. I love a good beer sampler.

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