Foodcation in Portland, Oregon

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.

Cultured Caveman, paleo food cart

Bacon almond dates, kale salad

Sweet potato fries

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.

Salt & Straw ice cream

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.

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

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.

Pok Pok

Pok Pok - duck, pork and chicken

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).

Voodoo Doughnuts

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.

Coconut peanut butter and maple bacon

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.

Eugene, Corvallis, and Mary's Peak

Eugene offered us two things we desperately needed: coffee and wifi, courtesy of a cafe called Perk. Afterwards, we drove around a few neighborhoods, and once we didn’t get that warm cozy feeling from the town, we made a snap decision to head north to a campground near Corvallis, rather than stick around and have dinner in Eugene. (Sorry, Eugene. We’ll give you another chance someday.)

We barely got to see Corvallis but what we saw, we really really liked. We paid a visit to Trader Joe’s to stock up for the night, before driving to the nearby Mary’s Peak, where we were by now confident that we’d find a camp spot. And we were right! We were the second group into the 6-spot, tents-only campground. We cooked some of Trader Joe’s pre-marinated tri-tip steak with some roasted veggies. Another campfire cuisine success, and we even had some steak leftover for breakfast!

Steak Dinner

Breakfast

Camping at Mary's Peak

Boy did we need a hot breakfast the next morning. It got pretty chilly that night, probably low 40s, and the steak and eggs certainly hit the spot. We chatted it up with the ranger who came around, and he recommended the views from the top of Mary’s Peak (the tallest peak in the Cascade range), which we’d already planned on doing before leaving, but about which we were now even more excited.

Even though it wasn’t a totally clear morning, we were able to see the amazingness of Mount Hood and several other peaks. Apparently on a really clear day, you can see for about 500 miles. Other perks of the hike: it felt great to have a morning hike to get the blood flowing, and enjoy the warm sun at the top of the peak.

View from Mary's Peak, Oregon

A Quick Dip & Wild Blackberries

From lava fields to thick forests, Central Oregon seems pretty wild. We were also starting to resemble wild things: it’d been a handful of days since our last shower (in San Francisco)... we were in desperate need of some running water. On a whim, Loren pulled the car off the scenic road along the Mackenzie River at Silver Creek Boat Landing, with a semi-formed idea of bathing in the water. We changed into our swimsuits and hobbled down the boat launch to the shore where we tested the water. Frigid. Kristen was the first to dunk and Loren quickly followed. There are few things that take the wind out of you like cold water. It was instant relief to step out of the water, where we sudsed up while shivering. The second time into the water to wash off the soap didn’t seem quite as bad but it was still worth it to keep contact with that water to a minimum!

Now that we were clean and wide awake, Loren noticed some plentiful blackberry thickets, and went to town gathering as many as he could. These were perfect, big, ripe blackberries.

Wild Blackberries!

We ended up with at least a pound (filling both camping mugs we had) which would’ve cost at least $10 back east at Whole Foods, and immediately put them to good use by mixing them with sliced banana, cottage cheese (from Redwoods National Park grocer) and honey (purchased in Sedona). Best lunch yet. Central Oregon, you’re too generous!

Banana, blackberries, cottage cheese and honey

Welcome to Oregon

With the prospects of exploring a new state, we crossed our first state line in 15 days and were filled with excitement as we made it into Oregon. First up on our agenda was a stop at Crater Lake.

The deep, rich blue colors that emanate out of Crater Lake seem otherworldly, and it’s pretty mind-boggling that the beautiful lake was born out of a catastrophic geological turn of events. What is now calm, placid lake water was once a mountaintop that exploded in a volcanic eruption, creating a caldera that is as deep as the sheer cliffs surrounding the lake are high. It’s America’s deepest lake, and it seems as though the underwater ecosystem remains rather mysterious even to this day, with few expeditions into the deep blue lake to chart the strange creatures at the bottom.

We explored a few overlooks and hiked up to a few vistas, and it was beautiful. From one spot, there were so many grasshoppers out that it sounded like the tic-tic-tic-tic-trrrrrrrr of sprinklers. At another spot, neon chartreuse-colored moss balls clung to dead trees and rolled around on the ground, seemingly looking for another home. The tiny pinecones were also rather endearing. After a few different vantage points, we kept on trucking further into unknown territory, a city we've been planning to visit for a long time...

Bend, Oregon, is a charming little outdoorsy town that could definitely end up being a relocation destination. This part of Oregon is sheltered from the coastal rainy weather by the mountains, so it therefore enjoys better weather (which has been a drawback to a few of the places on our relocation list) than much of the state. It’s also very close to skiing (Mount Baker), and a couple of hours from Eugene and Portland. We stocked up at REI - Loren replacing some age-old khaki pants that were at least 3 sizes too big for him with some better camping pants which he may have found in the boy’s department (it’s not easy finding 28x28s or men’s XS).

While driving to the downtown area, we passed the cyclepub and kicked ourselves for not having the camera ready. It’s exactly as it sounds: a pub that’s on wheels, with patrons all facing in on each other pedaling to move the pub from one spot to the next. Drunk cyclists? not really - the contraption appeared to be commandered by a sober coxwain-type, facing forward at the back of the thing.

So we parked and mosied our way around the historic downtown parts, window shopping at a few closed stores (it was after normal business hours), before sitting down for dinner at a cute restaurant called Zydeco Cafe. True to Oregon style, this restaurant focuses on high-quality, organic, sustainable, local foods, and the food was a treat from our couple of nights in a row of campfire meals.

Bend, Oregon - Zydeco

Loren’s dish was wild boar! Absolutely delicious. Kristen’s dish was a safe steak, which was also mouth-wateringly yummy. What made both dishes even more memorable was the roasted veggies side - butternut squash, green beans, peppers, and pearl onions - we couldn’t have done it better!

We drove through a couple of sleepy neighborhoods after dinner, even though it was dark, which confirmed our suspicion that we could see ourselves living in this quaint town. Then we headed for the hills, where we found a campsite at a National Wilderness area. We set everything up in the dark and quickly retreated to our sleeping bags.

Camping outside of Bend