We left the Bay Area around 10:00am and after a very long 10 hours on a not very scenic Highway 5, we finally arrived in Portland, Oregon. The most exciting thing that happened was when, 90 minutes into the drive, Greg realized he did not have his passport! Considering we were hoping to get up to Vancouver, BC, this was going to pose a problem. Good thing Dad Lam was on the case, as we sent him over to our apartment and had him overnight Greg's passport to our hotel. Phew! Thank goodness for dads!
After that problem was behind us, we were well on our way to Portland.
Not wanting to waste time checking into our hotel (which is out of city center, more towards the airport), we headed straight for one of the highest rated breweries in Portland, called PINTS (all caps necessary).
It was soooooo dead in there; just one other couple aside from us. Of course we ordered the sampler, which was 8 beers of all types. The beer was OK, we weren't blown away by it though, considering everything we've heard about Portland breweries. It's probably well beloved as a local but as a visitor, just OK. The food was pretty solid. Did you know that Portland bars have to serve food? Most of it is pretty decent too, I hear.
Today we had a bit of a later start which became even more late when went to breakfast at Tasty & Sons. It's a very hip brunch place, which was packed to the gills when we arrived. They quoted us 90 minutes but said, "It could very well be much less depending on how many people don't stick around." HA! If only SF people would heed the same advice (about leaving). We headed next door for some real Portland coffee (HELLA PRETENTIOUS) but they did make a delightful cappuccino. I mean, seriously, they had TWO kinds of pour over coffee plus french press. Whatever.
True to their word, we had a call from the restaurant about 45 minutes later (half the time they quoted us).
We ate: Pear French Toast, Cheddar Biscuit with Fried Chicken, and Steak and Eggs. I could go into detail but you can read my Yelp for that.
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| Look at me, I'm a cute creamer container |
There's no steak picture because it took FOREVER to get it. Boo. And no, it wasn't that great.
Moving on! After full bellies, we took a drive up to the Columbia River Gorge for some nature and hiking. After some confusion of trying to find this hidden away waterfall, we ended up with all the other tourists at two of the more well known waterfalls.
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| My wonky eye is very apparent here |
The hike was steeper and longer than I anticipated and of course we went to the top of the falls. On our way back, we decided to find a couple geocaches, which was fun. Very nice hike, even if it was a bit crowded. The Multnomah Falls is the second largest year round waterfall, I'm guessing Yosemite is the first??
On the way back, we had been planning to hit up a ramen joint (highest rated on Yelp around here), even though it was in Beaverton, which is west of Portland (and about 30 min from our hotel). It was located in this weird strip mall but that did not deter us as we have found really delicious food in strip malls before. They opened at 6PM so we decided to hit up a highly rated larger brewer before food. Enter: Hair of the Dog brewery.
So you have figured out by now that we tend to go the "tasters" route so we can enjoy a variety of beer offered by a brewery. It's the best way to get the full picture of a brewery plus it gives Greg lots of badges on the Untappd app.
This beers are heavier on the ABV, which means hipster beer drinkers LOVE this place. I thought they had some good ones and some not so good ones. The cool thing about this place was that their beers all had human names. Above, Greg is drinking the Greg beer! Hee hee.
After finishing beers from cute little tasting glasses, it was time to eat ramen! They quoted us 45 min so we sat in the car and listened to the Sharks games. This food call came about 30 min after, not bad!
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| Kukani Ramen (pork belly with tonkotsu broth) |
We had semi-high hopes for this place due to the review but sad to say they didn't quite live up to the hype. Solid bowl of noodles and probably very good for Portland (sorry, food snob here) but nothing like the Bay Area (which is nothing like Japan?).
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| This was the shop next door |
It was still quite early so we headed to another brewery to finish out the night. I'm not sure if you knew this, but "sour" beers are quite hot right now and no place more so than Portland. Cascade Barrel House is known for their sour beers and more than half of the ones they serve are sour. Yikes! Personally, I haven't yet acquired the taste for sour but I figure it's a matter of time, kind of like beer in general. They taste a lot like wine, especially the fruit ones. I'm not quite sure if "chocolate" is a good sour beer taste but.... anyway, they had lots of interesting beers and I think this has been my favorite so far.
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| Behind the bar |
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| This beer is a BLONDE STOUT! It tastes like coffee! It was very trippy! Also my favorite and Greg's least favorite! |
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| Meet Cherry Vlad. He was sour, which was OK because sour cherries taste good. |
And that is all for today! Tomorrow we have big plans for FOOD and just walking around Portland. Then off to Washington!
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