Day 13: Jim arrives in Portland (and joins us in eating LOTS of food) - June 27

Jim arrived early this morning and I went to pick him up while the girls got packed up their stuff to move out of our private double/twin in the main hostel.  We struggled for days with the decision about whether to move to the Embassy Suites as planned or into the backyard yurt of the neighboring, mid-remodel house next door.  There were advantages to both and given the predicted 100+ degree weekend, the air conditioning in the fancy centrally located downtown hotel that we were getting for free with points held a lot of appeal…and I was certainly leaning that way (even Rachel agreed it made sense) but on Thursday night when we were sitting around eating biscuits late at night the hosteling experience (and the opportunity to stay in a yurt!) won out.  Jim was a little surprised when I picked him up and told him the choice we had made but he was game.  As we started to move our stuff into the yurt, it was crystal clear we had made the right decision.  Grant and the team here had added finishing touches that make it feel super homey, along with several fans to cool things off.  I’m so happy we decided to extend our stay at Traveler’s House!

We had to get moved in over there pretty quickly because we had a lot of eating to get to.  Rachel’s list is long and we only have the weekend to squeeze in as many places as possible.  It was a challenge we decided we were all willing to take on.  We had brunch reservations at Levant, “a French-Arabesque restaurant serving modern representations of Middle Eastern dishes in the heart of Portland.” They are open for dinner during the week and only serve brunch on the weekends.  We explained to our waiter that we’d be ordering light because they weren’t our only stop of the day and he got behind our plan…so much so that he brought us our pita and hummus, the pistachio cinnamon roll, and our egg baked in tomato dish (yum!) but then forgot to bring us the challah French toast.  I’m not sure if he forgot the dish or made an executive decision that we didn’t really need it – regardless we were thankful it never came. 

Then we were off to the Portland Farmer’s Market held Saturdays on Portland State University’s campus.  As you might imagine, the stalls were full of beautiful and delicious local bounty.  In addition there were chef demonstrations, prepared hot food, and several street performers.  It was very lively and we did a lot of tasting as we walked the whole market.   My favorite feature was “Durable Dining” – all of the food vendors selling prepared food have to sell it on real plates with real silverware and then there are Dirty Dish Return stations with buckets for each vendor so you can return your plate and fork for washing and reusing.

From the market we walked over to the Portland Art Museum – mostly for Julia but Rachel likes to be credited with also liking museums.  We always make fun of her “museum legs” and she was already feeling sluggish.  We just gave Julia a meet-up time and let her wander on her own – her favorite way to see a museum.  Rachel and I headed off to the impressionists – always my first stop – when out the window Rachel saw an exhibit in the museum courtyard of ten grand pianos with "Please Play Me" written on all of them. Suddenly her museum legs and general lethargy magically disappeared and she couldn’t move quickly enough to figure out how to get outside.  She spent the rest of the time moving from guitar to piano to piano to piano, attracting the attention of a little budding musician.  Julia joined her at the end and the girls played duets together on different pianos.

That was long enough without eating anything so we stopped off at Maurice - A Pastry Luncheonette rated one of the top 10 new restaurants in the world by Bon Apetit in 2014 - and ordered two little desserts, the black pepper cheesecake and lemon souffle pudding cake to share.  We walked to the corner and stopped in at Sizzle Pie to split one slice of cheese pizza.  Then we took Jim to Powell’s Books so he too could have that experience. 

From there we drove over to the Tea Bar and ordered a variety of cold drinks served in mason jars.  Then, traveled the few blocks back to Alberta to revisit Bollywood Theater.  Ryan works there when not working at the hostel and he let us know that though we had had great food during our first visit, there was one dish we really should have tried...the Kati Roll.  He wasn’t wrong!  We got one cut into four pieces for us – it was amazing!  While we were waiting there, Jim wandered next store to get his first Salt & Straw ice cream.  He came back quickly saying the line was “too long” – but when he said it was still inside the shop, not out the door and down the street, we let him know that wasn’t even really a line by Salt & Straw standards and made him go back….he wisely chose a salted caramel cone, which we all helped him finish off.

We went back to the hostel to hang out (read, work on puzzle) until it was time to leave for our dinner reservations at Caffe Mingo…we had to go try the pasta we had made!  It was so fun to see the restaurant in full action.  Our table wasn’t quite ready so we went next door to Bar Mingo to wait for our table.  Mike was dining there with his lovely wife Tenley and we had a nice chat, primarily comparing travel notes about Italy – sort of comparing, mostly learning. They know the country much, much better than we do.  After talking to them, I feel the need to get back there soon!

Our dinner was incredible!  One of the best we’ve had in Portland.  The food, as they claim, is simple Italian cooking, and it is executed perfectly – we recommend it highly!  It is also nice having friends in the kitchen.  We ordered many of the things we had seen in preparation the day before – the whole artichoke, the caprese salad with slow-roasted tomatoes, a risotto, two orders of our gnocchi (which the Chef agreed to make a special vegetarian sauce for, though he had already said no to a different table), sides of broccoli and asparagus, and a berry crisp for dessert (even though we had seen just how much butter is used to make the crisp topping).   Wes thought we should definitely also try the pasta we made so a delectable basil pesto fettucine appeared at our table, as did a tiramisu we hadn’t ordered.    I typically don’t even like tiramisu but this one was wonderful. 

After a long, leisurely dinner, a walk sounded nice to me, so we meandered up and down 23^rd (“trendy-third”) Street.  The line at the Salt & Straw there was not just out the door, it was around the block– so glad we had checked that off the list earlier today!