So we decided this would be a great place to celebrate our 1st year anniversary.
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| The Croppers are in Portland! |
Portland at has similarities to other large scale cities. But there were some distinguishing factors in the "Rose City." One in particular were the water fountains called "bubblers", which confused us since they continually dribbled water.
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  Some Portland Specialties |
There were also large communities of homeless, even in front of signs saying "No Camping, No Fires, No Dumping". We also discovered that Oregon legally sells Marijuana. Before you ask, Caiqian and I didn't even go into a store. It was still interesting to see such a rare sight.
On our first morning, we met up with some internet strangers that Caiqian befriended from an online financial forum. This was my first time meeting people from the internet in real life, and I can say it went really well! Two were a married couple, an the third was another friend. We decided to eat together ät a restaurant called "Screen Door." It was fortunate that we met up on the morning of the first day, because they reccomended restaurants for us to eat at for the rest of our trip.
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One of them ran a food blog so we knew we were getting top notch recommendations. At Screen Door I really enjoyed Caiqian and my dishes, namely the fresh "Fried Oysters Egg Benedict" and the towering "Chicken and Waffles."
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| Screen Door's Oysters Egg Benedict |
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| Screen Door's Chicken and Waffles |
Afterwards we all hopped in the couple's car. From there we dropped of the nice friend at her apartment. But the couple nicely drove us to Washington Park and joined us at Portland's Japan Garden. Normally there is an entry fee but the couple got us in for free since they were members!
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| Portland Japanese Garden |
The gentleman actually frequented the Japanese Garden, and was able to give us an informal, but thorough tour of the gardens. We learned that every japanese garden has moving water, a turtle to represent long life, and large rocks. We also learned that water walkways are zig-zagged so that spirits can't chase you (spirits can only run in straight lines). And we even enjoyed two large rock gardens.
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   Beautiful Sights at Portland Japanese Garden |
My favorite display at the Japanese Gardens was the Bonsai collection. One of the trees is over 500 years old, and my personal favorite was a bonsai (tiny tree) Redwood (the largest tree species), the top picture below.
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  Bonsai collection including ironic Coastal Redwood (top image) |
Afterward we finally parted ways with the nice couple. Just a short stroll from the Japanese Garden was the free Rose Garden (also in Washington Park).
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   The Rose City's Rose Garden |
Although the gardens were my favorite non-food activity in Portland, we also enjoyed the Portland Ariel Tram. The most unique thing about the tram is that it's part of the commute for dozens of medical professionals.
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 Portland Ariel Tram |
I think Caiqian's favorite attraction in Portland was Powell's Books. I say it was her favorite because we went there three times! Powell's is a city-block-wide bookstore with up to four floors. Caiqian and I found boardgames and coffee shops in the labyrinth, but the only purchase we made (in fact, the only thing we took back to Houston) was a cute coloring book (you can see Caiqian's face in the bottom picture).
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For the second half of this post I wanted to talk about the different delicious foods, starting with the savory food! One delicious meal was Portuguese Fried Rice from Cheryl's on 12th. I didn't care for the sausage, but the rice was subtle yet not bland. Would recommend!
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| Portuguese Fried Rice from Cheryl's on 12th |
Another savory set came from Tasty and Alder, which featured unique Koran meals.
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We really wanted to celebrate Portland's food truck culture, since this might have been the starting ground for the food truck craze that has spread to Austin and even Houston. If you want some really delicious Korean comfort food, get the Bibim Box at Kim Jong Grillin'.
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| Galbi Bibim Box from Kin Jong Grillin |
Lastly (for the savory foods at least), Caiqian and I stumbled into a small food truck village where we walked past at least a dozen trucks. From here we got some juice from one truck and some indian at another.
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That's it for the savory foods, time to move onto the real show, the desserts of Portland! I'll start off with a recommendation from my mom, and possibly the only place that we went to hat wasn't mentioned at our original Portland meetup.
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| Saint Honoré Boulangerie Café Salon de Thé |
The place was called Saint Honoré Boulangerie, and there I learned that Napoleons = mille feuilles = delicious.
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| Cannelais and Strawberry Mille-Feuille. |
For you ice-cream lovers out there, there is no place more creative, and delicious, than Salt and Straw. Caiqian and I ended up getting a honey-lavender ice cream, and now I wish I could pick up lavender ice cream in the grocery stores. As our Portland friends told us, don't forget that if you go, you can try as many flavors as you want!.
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 Honey and Lavender Ice Cream + Menu at Salt & Straw |
Our biggest let-down in Portland was Voo-Doo donuts, which gets a 10/10 for theme, but a 4/10 for donut deliciousness.
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| Voodoo Donut Display |
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| Voo-Disappointment |
If you want to go to a real donut place, look no further than Blue Star Donuts.
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| Blue Star Donuts |
Here Caiqian and I ordered the same donut that we ordered at Voo-Doo, namely a creme-filled-chocolate-glazed donut. But the difference was night and day. The inside was a creamy vanilla custard, and the top was real chocolate, not chocolaty-sugar. And as a bonus, there were crunchy choco-bits.
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 Valrhona chocolate crunch donut from Blue Star |
Well, that's it for Portland. But fortunately, in the second half of this year we will be traveling to many new locations (since we got Southwest's companion pass). Stay tuned.
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