We departed pretty late that night for Portland, as usual with Fairbanks departures and arrivals. We got in about 11am or so to Portland Airport and picked up our rental car.
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| Donkeys riding the rental car shuttle |
Andy’s cousin, Carrie, and her husband Kevin, kindly offered for us to stay with them while we were in Portland. They had a beautiful condo with gorgeous views of downtown. Since we arrived while they were still at work, we spent the afternoon getting some lunch and exploring some highlights of the Pearl District. The Pearl District has an interesting history – it began as an area dominated by warehouses and railroad yards, and in the 1980’s it began to slowly transform to what it is today – a bustling and posh downtown area complete with ritzy art galleries, gorgeous condos, fancy restaurants, and tons of upscale shopping like Splendid, Patagonia, and Lucy.
We started our afternoon with lunch at Henry’s 12th Street Tavern. The restaurant has a large food menu and an even larger beer menu, ranging from ciders and fruit ales to lagers and IPAs. Their lunch menu and dinner menu boast awesome dishes such as the twisted giant Bravarian soft pretzel, Hank’s beer braut, and Mac and Cheese Burger. They also have live music every night (check out the schedule here).
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| Inside |
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| Andy got the mac and cheese burger, of course. |
The streets of Portland were interesting, and Carrie and Andy joked often about the comparison of a “Portland block” and a “Chicago block.” Apparently Chicago blocks were significantly longer than Portland blocks, and thus a phrase such as “it’s 5 blocks away” meant something very different in Portland than in Chicago.
Portland was very pedestrian and bike friendly. I expected at much, but I was still pretty surprised. It wasn’t as hilly as I anticipated it to be (in my head I was comparing it more to Seattle), and sidewalks and crosswalks were clean and safe. Drivers were polite and seemed un-bothered by the numerous bikers and skateboarders weaving in and out of traffic.
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| Portland! Complete with a biker there on the left. |
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| Pretty Portland! |
After lunch, Andy and I meandered over to Powell’s City of Books, a famous bookstore and cafe. Numerous people had recommended we stop in here. Being the avid book lover that he is, Andy had to go.
Powell’s actually has five locations: Four in Portland (1005 W. Burnside St., 3723 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 3747 SE Hawthorne Blvd., and the Portland Airport), and one in Beaverton. This bookstore was FABULOUS. It was huge, with three floors, perfectly designed and organized sections, color-coded for each topic area, and a beautiful cafe in the back equipped with coffee and wifi.
What I liked most about the bookstore was its organizational scheme. Any of their very friendly staff members could give you a map that showed where each color coded area was and what topics were found in that color coded area. For example below, we found ourselves in the blue section, which housed anthologies, classics, drama, journalism, lit criticism, lit history, literature, memoirs, poetry, and small pieces. See a store map here.
I immediately found the true crime books in the gold section.
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| True Crime books |
Within 4 seconds of entering the bookstore, I lost Andy. But, I quickly snapped a picture of him before he disappeared into his own private little heaven.
I decided to just let Andy get lost, and the donkeys and I explored around. Powell’s was impressive, to say the least. According to its website, this particular Powell’s (called “City of Books”) was 68,000 square feet housing over 120 major subset areas, and over 3,000 subsection areas complete with over one million books. It estimates that about 6,000 people visit the bookstore every day.
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| Encouraging those interested in self-publishing |
Then, I lost the donkeys. I found them a few minutes later. Donna was in the feminist section and Don was in the self-help/small business section.
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| Alright there, Donna. |
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| Yes Don, we know. |
I wandered around a bit more with Don and Donna; we looked all the collections, including the Rare Book Room and the World Cup Coffee & Tea Cafe. Suddenly, Andy comes up behind me with this bizarre look on his face, eyes wide, face filed with concern and apprehension. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Tiny Wife, we have GOT to get out of here before I buy everything and we go bankrupt.” We made it to the checkout counter like it was the ER. Andy escaped with a big stack of books and minimal financial damage.
We met Carrie and Kevin back at their condo and we headed out to dinner. They suggested a gorgeous and super tasty Peruvian food restaurant called Andina. Run by the Platt family, the restaurant aims to serve authentic and perfectly replicated Peruvian food combining both native Peruvian cooking traditions, and up and coming cuisine techniques from Peru’s leading chefs. Read more about Andina’s history here.
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| Inside of restaurant looking down at the tables on the lower floor. |
The menu was extensive; each entrée had a Spanish title with an English description. For appetizers we got Espárragos Peruanos, (grilled asparagus brushed with chimichurri), Palta Rellena De Cangrejo (avocado stuffed with crab, topped with a poached prawn), and Anticucho De Pulpo (grilled octopus kebobs with chimichurri and a caper majado de papa). Everything was super tasty, although I wasn’t a huge fan of the octopus.
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| My entrée: BIstec Nuroandino, seasoned Cascade Natural filet mignon, grilled to order, topped with a King-oyster mushroom salsa criolla and black beer sauce (I asked for no beer sauce), accompanied by a traditional humita and a sauté of fingerling potatoes, frisée and achiote oil 37. |
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| Andy’s entrée: Carapulcra Con Puerco, grilled, Pisco-brined pork loin and crispy pork belly, accompanied by a traditional potato carapulcra seasoned with aji panka, peanuts and Moonstruck Fortunato No. 4 chocolate; finished with an anise reduction and salsa criolla con menta 26. |
Carrie, Kevin, and Andy each got a very strange and unique cocktail called Sacsayhuamán (it’s basically pronounced like “sexy woman”!). It’s description read: “Habanero pepper vodka shaken with pureed passionfruit and cane sugar, served up with a sugar rim and cilantro leaf garnish.” That’s right, habanero pepper vodka. It was a little crazy. I was the only one who did not partake in this drink, but I took a sip of Andy’s. I’m not sure I could have drank the whole thing.
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| The drink! Picture from TripAdvisor. |
Kevin told us that apparently his mother had warn down the waiter for the super secret recipe. There appears to be many suggestions and versions online, although I’m not sure how authentic each one is. See a description and review of the drink here.
We drank and chatted the night away; the next day we got up and headed to Stumptown Coffee Roasters. unfortunately Carrie had to work but both she and Kevin strongly recommended checking out this coffee place. We headed there with Kevin to start our Portland tour!
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| Stumptown Coffee Roasters |
Stumptown was awesome! They featured a variety of interesting and unique roasts including “Holler Mountain Blend” in citrus zest, caramel and hazelnut, “Hair Bender” in cherry, toffee and fudge, and “Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Chelbessa” in lime, hibiscus and complex (see their full list here). Their website also boasts a pretty impressive blog with posts spanning a variety of topics including sustainability and farming of coffee, different ways to brew and blend coffee, and art and poetry featured on their websites and in their local businesses. They’re way more than just a coffee shop!
I sipped my delightful Americano on our way to Pearl Bakery just a couple blocks from Stumptown. Pearl Bakery was just as impressive – opened in 1997, they make their own variety of breads, muffins, cookies, and macaroons, to name a few. They also have a great selection of vegan muffins as well as salads and grilled sandwiches.
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| Inside of Pearl Bakery with a view of their impressive variety of in-house baked breads |
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| Don shared my vegan muffin with me after our shopping trip to Splendid |
On the way down to the Portland Waterfront, our next stop, we passed by Ground Kontrol, which our friends Ethan and Alex had suggested we stop at. We unfortunately didn’t have time to hang out there, but the incredibly loud Pokemon and video game music emanating from the doors explained perfectly what it was about. If you’re a video gamer, it looked pretty fun!
The Portland Waterfront, technically called the “Tom McCall Waterfront Park,” this beautiful park sits on the Naito Parkway between SW Harrison St. and NW Glisan St. Roughly 30 acres, it was established in 1927 and features a boat dock, fountain, historical site, jogging, biking and walking paths, and the Japanese American Historical Plaza.
On August 3, 1990, the Japanese American Historical Plaza was established in memory of Japanese-Americans who were deported to interment camps during World War II. Designed by award-winning landscape architect Robert Murase, the plaza contains a memorial garden, artwork in bronze relief and engraved poetry, and bronze columns.
The stones on the south end were the most fascinating. They honor Issei, the first generation of Japanese who immigrated to the United States. Issei settled mainly in California, Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii.
Near the stones was a dedication by President Ronald Reagan and a Statement of the Congress.
The Waterfront Park sits next to the beautiful Willamette River, a tributary of the Columbia River. The Willamette River has a interesting history regarding its cleanliness, sewer issues, and cleanup initiatives. Regarded as one of the country’s filthiest rivers in the early 1920’s, numerous plans have been implemented to maintain the Willamette’s beauty, protect the environment, control flooding, and target residential pollution of the river. In 1966, Governor Tom Mcall (Tom McCall Waterfront Park!) became head of the Oregon State Sanitary Authority and ordered water quality tests, revamped pollution standards and set more stringent requirements for businesses that intended to set up shop near the river. Today, the Williamette is beautiful and clean, and is even used for drinking water in numerous Oregon cities.
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| Steel Bridge, opened in 1912 |
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| Handsome boys! |
Our next big adventure was to locate Portland’s echo chamber. Kevin hadn’t heard of it before (which was surprising because he was basically our Portland guru!), and despite some of Andy’s research, he wasn’t exactly sure where it was or how it worked. All we knew is that it existed somewhere in Pioneer Courthouse Square.
Located downtown, Pioneer Courthouse Square, known as “Portland’s Living Room,” was opened in 1984 and is managed by a private 501(c)(3) organization. It’s purpose is to serve as a gathering space and event area for the city. The park is a “by the people for the people” park, designed with Portland’s resident’s in mind; indeed, one can even purchase a brick in the square for $100 and inscribe their name or family member’s name on it.
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| Visitor Center and fountain |
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The park also included the very interesting weather machine which would indicate the weather and the air quality using certain symbols and numbers.
Based on Andy’s research, the echo chamber was supposed to be in this park (surprisingly, the park’s website says nothing of this echo chamber). Kevin and Andy stood in the middle of the park (which made the most sense at the time) and sort of looked at each other.
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| Confused. |
We took turns standing there and yelling things at each other to see if it echoed. Nothing happened except that everyone was staring at us. I finally decided to google-image the phrase “Portland Echo Chamber” which turned up pictures of where we were really suppose to stand, which was here:
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| Not where we were standing earlier. |
“Andy, do you think that’s it?” I asked. “I don’t know,” he said, “try it.” So I stood in the middle and said “HELLO!” Immediately the sound bounced off the stairs and reverberated back. It was incredibly loud. I turned around super excited, “It works! It works!”
What made it interesting is you have to stand exactly on that round plaque in the middle. If you stand even slightly off to the side it doesn’t have the same effect.
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| Here’s where you want to stand. |
Beyond the Echo Chamber were bronze sculptures of the different activities that occurs in the square, including chess and coffee drinking. Made of bronze, the sculptures were designed by Soderstrom Architects, P.C., a Portland based architectural firm. They sit on the Morrison Street fallen column.
The other fun thing about Portland is its food carts. Poised on almost every block and street corner, you can find any kind of tasty treat perfectly cozied into tiny trucks with hard working people sticking their faces through little windows serving long lines of hungry customers. One major street had food carts that lined the entire two blocks at a 90 degree angle. Any kind of food you could think of or felt like was available.
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| Indonesian food |
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| Egyptian food |
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| Thai food next to Mexican food. |
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| Hawaiian BBQ. |
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| Now, THIS one was cool! Called “The Whole Bowl,” it was a protein and complex-carb packed nutrition bowl with avocado, cilantro, cheese, salsa, black and red beans, brown rice, and host of other things. It looked awesome! |
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| German food. |
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| Greek food. Of course Don wanted to stop here. |
Next stop was the Tanner Springs Park on NW 10th Ave. and Marshall Street. Known as an “urban park,” Tanner Springs was acquired in 2003 and aims to recapture the area’s past with the native wetlands and flowing runnels. From what Kevin explained to us, the park is purely natural; nothing is added or taken away from it and the city allows native plants and animals to thrive there undisturbed while preventing any additions or invasive species.
We finished off the day before meeting Carrie at the Deschutes Brewery, based in Bend, Oregon. They have a brewery/public house in Portland on NW 11th Avenue; we stopped in there so Kevin and Andy could enjoy a beer.
This brew pub had 19 beers on tap including the famous Black Butte Porter, as well as the Mirror Pond Pale Ale, Cider Cone Red, and Twilight Summer Ale (see their full list here).
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| Andy and Kevin both got Black Butte Porter. I got coffee 🙂 |
We met Carrie back and their condo and made our way to Bar Mingo, a really cute, elegant, and modern restaurant and bar right next door to its sister restaurant Caffe Mingo. One would assume that Bar Mingo is fancier than Caffe Mingo, but that’s not the case; indeed, one of the reasons for the estbalishment of Bar Mingo was a casual place for wait-listed diners from Caffe Mingo to wait. Despite this, if I had not known this fact, there’d be no way I’d guess. Bar Mingo was stylish inside, with private seating, excellent wait staff, and an very extensive menu.
Their menu featured delicious and unique entrees and starters like raw oysters, grilled trout salad, Italian sausage, and a sizable pasta list including vongole (manila clams, pancetta, chili flake, and parsley), pappardelle (rabbit argue, parmesan), and cache e pepe (black pepper, pecorino). Everything was fabulous!
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| Me and beautiful Carrie. |
We cabed it back to the condo and stayed up for awhile chatting. Our time with Carrie and Kevin went by too quickly – we loved spending the past couple days with them. Thanks, Carrie and Kevin for our awesome time in Portland! We’re looking forward to seeing you in Alaska soon!