25 June, 2013

Eating, drinking and more shopping in Portland

During my recent visit to Portland, I managed to squeeze in a little bit of sightseeing in between my vintage shopping expeditions (see previous post!).

I have been starved of English books of late (I am currently living in France), so I made a bee line for book heaven - Powell's Books in downtown Portland - which is quite famous and very very good! 
Unfortunately due to my luggage restrictions I could not buy any books, but did stock up on a few of my favourite magazines.

Next stop was the Ace Hotel where they serve the famous 'Stumptown' coffee which is an artisan company in Portland who roast coffee - see Stumptown coffee roasting. It was very nice coffee. And I say that as someone who is very very fussy about coffee. . .  (I am a Melbournite after all!)
Ace Hotel, Portland

Old building near Ace Hotel, Portland

In addition to coffee, I had some great wine and food in Portland. As I was channeling all my cash into vintage, I did not spend a lot on food - but this is where Portland is great. Practically every restaurant has a nightly happy hour where you can purchase reasonably-priced drinks (glasses of wine for $5-6) and plates of food (smaller versions of the dishes you could get at dinner). 

One of the highlights was the restaurant on the 30th floor of one of the office buildings in Portland  - the Portland City Grill. I had a glass of great white wine and the Salmon fish cakes - they were sooo nice!

On my last day, I sampled a meal from the famous food vans in Portland - these are uber trendy spots in Portland where you can get a cheap meal and sit in a nearby park. I had an interesting lunch plate from the Ethiopian food van - the beef was sort of warmish rather than hot which made me a little concerned. But I survived! I have to say that although they are very cute, the whole 'food van' thing is not my scene. Give me a glass of wine, some salmon and a great view any day.

Some of the famous food vans in downtown Portland.

So there you go, a little snippet of my trip to Portland. I would highly recommend a visit to Portland - its quite cheap and easy to fly there from LA and is an interesting spot. The people are also very very nice. The only thing I would say that it is perhaps not as 'weird' as it makes out (the slogan for Portland is 'Keep Portland Weird'). I thought I would see a lot of kooky outfits and people with red hair, but everything was pretty tame in comparison to our 'quirky' area of Collingwood and Fitzroy in Melbourne where anything is the go. So, just bear that in mind. Its not as 'weird' as you might expect!

2 comments:

  1. I've always been curious about Portland (and other places with reputations for weirdness, like Austin Texas) so I enjoyed your posts on the town. Your report of its relative normalcy is surprising but undoubtedly accurate. Most reputations are overblown.

    Like your blog! You have great retro style.

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  2. i've just been to portland last week, sadly for only one short day ... but it's such a beautiful city with great shops, bars and eating places .... we spent the most part of my portland time at the home of a friend of my hubby. the most amazing vintage home i've ever seen. i didn't took pictures there but it was like a 40s-60s pinup fun museum.
    awesome weird city!

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