Portland: Where to Eat, Day 1

There’s a magical place about an hour-long flight north of San Francisco. There are lots of trees, brunches, bicycles, and bridges, and everyone is nice. Like, REALLY nice. Like picking-me-up-in-a-doughnut-shop nice. But that’s another story. This week, the story is about my 3.5 days in Portland and my resulting assertion that I have to live there at some point in my life if I don’t slip into a food coma before then.

I wasn’t sure how to structure my Portland posts mainly because I ATE SO MUCH and there is STILL so much more to eat! While renting a bike for the duration of my trip did guarantee some exercise, it also guaranteed that I reached my next food destination faster and ate even more than usual. The struggles were real for me, guys, as real as the 90s were alive in Bridge City (a nickname which I strangely want to insert into this Tyga song and parody it).

I’ll have an interactive map of PDX eats at the end of this series, but for now, here’s what I found to the best eats in Portland, Oregon on the first day of my visit:

Day 1

After a fantastic dinner at Toro Bravo, the newest restaurant from the Tasty n Sons/Tasty n Alder duo, I rented a bike first thing Friday morning and set out to conquer The Spreadsheet. First order of business: caffeination and a bike map from Stumptown. There are Stumptowns all over the city, reminding me a lot of Blue Bottle. Each location is a little quirky in its own right but rock the high ceilings, industrial walls, and rotating art pieces; and my cappuccino was on point.

From research, mainly from my blogger gal Erika who was in Portland a couple of weeks before me, I skipped Voodoo Doughnut and instead went to Nuvrei, a patisserie in the Pearl district, where I got two pastries cus I’m a fatty like that and then stood on a chair to capture this shot:

 

In case two pastries weren’t enough, I ducked into Cupcake Jones for a mini red velvet cupcake as well. Unlike San Francisco, cupcakes aren’t a huge deal here – there are only two or three cupcakeries in the city, and they are all very successful given the unsaturated market. This realization was the first step in my must-move-to-Portland ambitions – selling pastries must be so much easier here!

 

After a bike ride, during which in true Portland fashion, my basket broke from all the books I bought at Powell’s, I had a lazy lunch at Teote, another blogger suggestion. The arepas – gluten-free Venezuelan corn cakes – were so good I ordered a main dish and a set of arepitas, which were baby arepas drizzled with jalapeño crema. I’m a sucker for anything South American, and the kitschy décor of this place coupled with the crazy delicious (and SO affordable) meal made this an instant favorite for me.

A brief visit to Moonstruck Chocolate (more on that later), a Blue Moon, and a repaired bike basket later, I decided that ice cream needed to happen and so that would be my dinner in the form of Salt and Straw. There are three locations – I went to the Alphabet district scoop shop where even during dinner time on a Friday night, there was a line. Everything moved swiftly (they’re experts), and I took my time trying pretty much ALL ZE FLAVORS. Highlights: Coffee & Bourbon and Pear & Blue Cheese. Ultimately, I went with the Almond Brittle with Salted Ganache:

After a digestion nap and a quick drink at Clyde Common, we turned in to prepare ourselves to conquer brunch the next day.