Food, Posters and Cats in Nashville

September 13, 2012 by K & L in Dining Out, Food, News, North America, Places, Roadtrip 2012

After a cheap night of camping at a state park in Kansas, we drove for what seemed like ages until we reached Nashville, eager to get out of the car. We pulled up to our friends’ house in the Germantown neighborhood just as the sun was making its descent, painting the sky in oranges, yellows and reds. We were excited to visit, especially after hearing from another friend that it is “the best city in America!” - this coming from a guy who rarely uses superlatives. We decompressed a bit at Andrew and Emily's house and met their two cats before heading out to dinner.

By the time we sat down at our table, we’d memorized our order: bone marrow, beet salad, and the pork loin entree. So tasty! Especially the (vegetarian) beet salad.

The next morning, we went to the huge, year-round Nashville Farmer’s Market, featuring tons of local (and not-so-local) fresh fruit and vegetables, pickled and jarred products, and pretty much anything else one could want. Our attention was railroaded by the peaches everywhere, which seemed to be calling our name, so even though they hailed from Idaho, we loaded up with about two pounds and started brainstorming recipes.

Next, we hit up the historical strip downtown, intent on visiting the world-famous Hatch Show Prints shop. This group has been typesetting and printing local concert posters for decades, with a recognizable style all their own. Inside, it was dark and smelled like oil-based ink, the walls covered floor to ceiling with a mix of awesome vintage and contemporary prints. We were both instantly overwhelmed and inspired, captivated by the subdued grandiosity of the operation. Walking around in awed silence, we took it all in while our creative urges came to a rolling boil. This Nashville institution is an inspiration, to say the least.

There were also two super-happy if somewhat overweight cats lounging in the sunny windows behind some prints for sale. In fact, the cats were the centerpiece on a recent Hatch print, and boast their own hashtag: #hatchcats. Adorable and hip. We didn’t end up buying any original prints since we're technically homeless, but we did pick up a t-shirt and a postcard.

Back on the east side, we met Emily for lunch at Five Points Pizza. We each got a slice, split a salad, and splurged big-time on some garlic knots - garlicky dough twisted up into fist-sized knots - served with a tomato sauce dip. Apparently this place is fairly new but is already getting raving reviews. We agree with the praise!

Across the street, we browsed a row of cool shops, including a tiny, well-curated menswear store called Hello Boys, where Kristen bought Loren a belated birthday present: a pair of tie clips, which she’d been on the hunt for.

Before leaving the area, we popped into Bongo Java Roasting Company, a Nashville staple that takes pride in roasting coffee beans in-house and serving delicious caffeinated concoctions. The chalkboard specials, we came to find out, are invented and voted on by their own staff members. Loren got a special pumpkin-spice iced espresso, and Kristen got the regs (black iced coffee).

It was a quick yet fabulous visit to Music City, and we can’t wait to come back (and hopefully see Andrew next time too!) Thanks for the southern hospitality, Emily!

Climbing in Colorado

September 09, 2012 by K & L in News, North America, Outdoors, People, Places, Roadtrip 2012

The second pinnacle of our roadtrip (if there can be such a thing) was spending time in our possible future-home-state of Colorado in the summertime (a first for Kristen). Adding to the awesomeness was a chance to meet up with two of our friends and fellow climbers, Berto and Bern, who live in the area. Bern took the four of us to an awesome cliff in Golden, just a ten-minute hike from the roadside parking area.

We aren’t super comfortable lead climbing outdoors, so we let our friends start off, and then belay us as we top-roped. We got to send four different routes, ranging from 5.8 to 5.10 in difficulty, which, for us, definitely boosted our confidence a tad for our next outdoor climbing trip.

Afterwards, we soaked our feet in the cold creek just down the hill, and then drove into the historic downtown of Golden for some eats. Not far from where we were, the Coors factory, the largest single-site brewery, churns out millions of gallons of watery beer each year. Bern insisted on taking us to D’Deli, a cool little gourmet sandwich shop on the main street, with such sandwich names as The Oinker, Maui Waui, and The Jackwaggon. Bern and Berto both got a Buffalo Chicken sandwich, while the two of us split a Prime Time and Piggly Wiggly.

For dessert, even though we were already full, we made a stop two doors down at Golden Sweets for delicious homemade ice cream. We both fell in love with the same sample and each got one scoop of the coconut chocolate chunk. Delish!

Thanks to Berto and Bern for showing us a great time (and climbing spot)! Hope to be back soon.

Foodcation in Portland, Oregon

September 02, 2012 by K & L in Dining Out, Food, North America, Places, Roadtrip 2012

Portland, Oregon, the city that takes great pride in its weirdness, was a must-visit city on this trip, even though we’d both been a couple of times previously. This time around, we decided that we would focus on sampling the great food Portland has to offer, thanks in part to an article we’d just seen in the latest Bon Appetit. Plus, we really only had an afternoon’s time to spare.

Our first stop was lunch at Cultured Caveman, Portland’s first paleo food cart, something Loren had read about a few times and was dying to sample. If you don’t know, paleo is a way of eating that is modeled on our ancestors’ diets, which excludes grains, legumes, dairy and excess sugar, and instead focuses on veggies, meat, poultry, fish, nuts, seeds, healthy fats and some fruit. We ordered three different menu items for some variety, including a small kale salad, bacon almond dates, and sweet potato fries with homemade ketchup. Super tasty and healthy.

After posting a photo of the cart on Instagram, Loren found out that it was International Bacon Day. This was fun news (for us, every day is bacon day), and we’d already had bacon in two meals by that time: we cooked our breakfast eggs in bacon fat, and we’d had delicious bacon-wrapped dates for lunch. Our excitement about the official Bacon Day was echoed when we told the paleo food cart owner, from which a quick foodie conversation ensued. On her recommendation (albeit not paleo at all), we set off down the street for a splurge at a little ice cream shop called Salt & Straw.

They have a cool handmade look and feel, along with really unique flavor combinations rooted in seasonal, local ingredients, and the whole shebang did not disappoint one bit. We got one scoop of the guest Chef’s special, a kaffir lime and lemongrass ice cream with fish sauce caramel (salty-sweet bliss for Kristen), and a scoop of the honey balsamic strawberry with cracked pepper for Loren. Sooo yummy.

*Honey Balsamic Strawberry with Cracked Pepper / Kaffir Lime & Lemongrass Fish Sauce Caramel*

Next we headed to the Nob Hill neighborhood (why are all cool neighborhoods called Nob Hill?) for a pick-me-up caffeine charge and a chance to blog. We sat at the little cafe called Fat Straw, which specializes in bubble tea and bahn mi. We would have loved to try the bahn mi but only had room for beverages and wifi. We each got a cup of flavored iced tea, which they make with coconut milk (dairy-free!). Kristen promptly spilled half of hers on the floor, after which fierce blogging ensued.

The Portland food tour continued at a popular Thai place called Pok Pok and which we read about in Bon Appetit. Pok Pok is nestled a few miles from downtown in a more residential area that seems to be an up and coming neighborhood. Even at 5pm, we were quoted at a 1hr 45min wait, which we weathered while sipping cocktails at the restaurant’s bar across the street, called Whiskey Soda Lounge.

We were super intrigued at their list of tasting vinegars, and the cocktail Loren adopted as his poison had tequila with Som honey drinking vinegar, fresh-squeezed grapefruit and lime. It was super tasty. Kristen’s drink was called Khing & I, made with Mekhong (Thai whiskey), lime and ginger syrup.

Whiskey Soda Lounge - Tequila with Som honey drinking vinegar, fresh-squeezed grapefruit and lime — Whiskey Soda Lounge - *Tequila with Som honey drinking vinegar, fresh-squeezed grapefruit and lime*

We were notified that our table was ready just in time to save Kristen from ordering another drink, so we went back across the street and sat down to a delicious dinner. The unique plates are not your normal Thai dishes, but deliciously different creations that are inspired by Thai street-vendor fare, Chiang Mai (Northern) cuisine, or Burmese cuisine, to name a few. The server explained most menu items are meant to be shared, so at his instruction we felt okay about ordering three plates: a duck dish, a pork belly dish, and the most popular dish: the spicy fish-sauce chicken wings. Even though we’d only just begun to scratch the surface after half an hour, we were both stuffed, so we packaged up the wings and felt good about leaving Portland before overdoing it.

But... We caved, and couldn’t pass up one last stop along our Portland culinary extravaganza, this time for dessert. Voodoo Doughnuts is a super-hipster Portland mainstay (its tagline is “good things come in pink boxes”), which has become a tourist destination; when we drove by their flagship location near Burnside Bridge downtown, there were at least a hundred excited patrons lined up down the sidewalk (similar to Georgetown Cupcake in DC).

Luckily Kristen remembered that they have a second location. We ended up waiting in line for a shorter amount of time than it took for us to decide from the dozens of doughnut kinds. We eventually settled on two: one chocolate cake doughnut with pink frosting, topped with coconut and peanut butter; the other a large rectangular doughnut topped with maple frosting and bacon. (Yes, bacon! Remember, it was International Bacon Day! We were just doing our part.) Mmmm, sugary fried gluten, so unhealthy but so delicious! We could only handle a few nibbles each, and then re-wrapped them, adding the package to our cache of leftovers for later consumption. It’s kind of ironic how healthy the day started off, but how easily we slipped off the bandwagon into progressively more unhealthy splurges. Well, you only live once.

We had our eyes on our next big destination, Olympic National Park, so we drove into the night, crossing into Washington state, and eventually found ourselves a campsite at Lewis & Clark State Park for the night. It was pretty standard, though we swear a nearby campground neighbor may have been the lead singer of the Kings of Leon - some guy was belting songs out so confidently and perfectly, we sat back and wondered if it could be him. Though, our next-door neighbor wasn’t quite so happy: their 10-ish-year old son comically said, “Quiet down now” in a southern accent just loud enough for us to hear.