Bamboo Grove Hawaiian Grille
515 SW Carolina Street
Portland, OR
If somebody tells you that business travelling is great, I am willing to bet he/she is lying to you. Granted, there will be some perks when travelling for business, like me being able to visit different local restaurants; however, it also takes a toll on your social and personal life – assuming you have one that is, or to quote that South Park in Make Love, Not Warcraft, “How do you kill that which has no life?”. (If you want to take a partial glimpse of people travelling for business, I highly suggest you watch Up in the Air). Considering my status, I take it in strides and enjoy all the restaurants the city/town I am has to offer. And, in this case, while in Portland, I was looking for something that isn’t found in Vancouver (yeah, despite we claim to be diverse, there is only that much Chinese restaurants I can digest – in the case of Vancouver, it is already way past a dozen too many): Hawaiian. And, among the different options, Bamboo Grove
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Tagged as:
Hawaii,
Pork,
Portland
Voodoo Doughnut
22 SW 3rd Ave
Portland, OR
Voodoo Doughnut Too (Location visited)
1501 NE Davis Street
Portland, OR
There are times that restaurants will do almost anything to get an edge over its competitors. Adding something extra can entice customers to come back and, who knows, make it a local attraction. In Vancouver, Cactus Club has celebrity chef as “food architect” but, still not all dishes work for me, not to mention the environment in general. However, such “innovations” can be more basis. As basic as making it visually appealing while maintaining the regular/default recipe. Such is the case of Voodoo Doughnut, a successful doughnut shop in Portland. The premise is these pieces of fried dough serves as a blank palette for some wacky decoration and motif. The question for me would be: how does the doughnut actually taste in the end???
Original location.
Voodoo Doughnuts Too, the location where I ended up purchasing the good.
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Tagged as:
Dessert,
Pastry,
Portland
Podnah’s Pit BBQ
1469 NE Prescott Street
Portland, OR
Yesterday, I wrote about Slabtown Ribs and Barbeque and how I left slightly disappointed. So, for dinner, I thought… Should I give another BBQ place a chance? Hey, why not! So, yeah, a vegan/vegetarian nightmare!!! Huahahahaha! OK, enough taunting… I had more than one place in mind: Russell Street Barbeque and Podnah’s Bit BBQ. I ended up choosing the later because, well, given my affinity for holes in the wall, I thought this might be a place I would like more.
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Tagged as:
BBQ,
Beef,
Portland
Slabtown Ribs and Barbeque
2606 NW Vaughn Street
Portland, OR
Let me ask you this: whenever you see smoke coming out from a restaurant (hopefully, from the exhaust), what comes to your mind? Good food, doesn’t it? So how about when it comes from a smoker? Or how about it coming from a smoker on the street at 7:00 a.m.??? Yup, that’s what happened when I passed by Slabtown Ribs and Barbeque during my stay in Portland. Every morning I passed by, I could see that smoker parked in front of the restaurant (which, otherwise, I would have passed by without noticing!) and wondered myself: “wow, that’s starting early!” And, of course, given you see actual smoke rather than the pressure cook/boil the meat, grill it, toss it with sauce and serve it (like, say, Montana’s Cookhouse), that was incentive enough to try to have some (real) BBQ goodness…
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Tagged as:
BBQ,
Beef,
Portland
Pambiche
2811 NE Glisan Street
Portland, OR
I don’t recall/remember/know how or when this began but, somehow, I have been deemed to be the subject-matter expert when it comes to Latin American food. Don’t get me wrong, I do really appreciate people think that is the case; however, I am not sure to what extent my expertise goes, as Latin America cuisine goes in almost all directions: from meat in Argentina, to seafood in Peru, to spices in the West Indies. The list goes on and on. But, rather than taking it for granted, I take it as a challenge. So why bring this? Since our showing of Latin food in Vancouver is heavily skewed towards Mexican, other Latin cuisines have been extremely shadowed by it. The only growing sprouts of other Latin cuisine have been Peruvian (El Inka Deli and Mochikas, which I still have to go) and Salvadorean (Rinconcito Salvadoreño) but even then, they are “forced” to serve Mexican dishes because the public “demands” it. But, given I was in the US, with a heavier Latin, non-Mexican influx, I thought I should give these other places a try. And the place is one of the top rated restaurants in Portland and which Sherman heavily recommended me give it a try: Pambiche.
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Tagged as:
Latin America,
Pork,
Portland
Stepping Stone Cafe
2390 NW Quimby Street
Portland, OR
Hello from Portland!
Yes, finally, after been grounded at work for several months, I am finally travelling again. OK, OK, I was in both Tacoma and Tukwila but, you know what, that does not really count as it can be done as a day trip. However, Portland, while is driving distance as well, is slightly different. By the time you get here, chances are you might want to stay at least a couple of nights.
So, unlike certain other border crossings, this time it went relatively smooth and managed to drive from Downtown Vancouver to my hotel (in Uptown Portland) in about 8 or so hours (with a couple of stops in between – without the stops, it would have been ~6.5 hours), which meant I arrived early enough… To go to an open restaurant!!! Which then again begs the usual question… Which one?
I ended up going to Stepping Stone Cafe for one reason: it is a diner. Granted, there are a lot other restaurants in the area (think a combination of Kits and Commercial Drive) but, at the same time, it has that odd forced “fakeness” to it. So, rather to go to some of the these more “posh” places, I chose to go to what might be the lowest common denominator – but, then again, my reputation for selecting this type of restaurants is quite well know…
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Tagged as:
Diner,
Portland
Johnny’s Burger Stop
I-5 Exit 212
Stanwood, WA
There are time where I believe I am a glutton for punishment (but in a really bad way). On my way to the US, before crossing the border, I decide to “skip” lunch and hopefully find something on my way to Seattle. However, there are times you are not certain what/when to eat and you skip option after option (of course, these options are usually well known chain restaurants). Now, there is nothing wrong with your McD’s if you are hungry but, you always think “I want to get something ‘better’”.
In a wacky way, that’s what sort of happened to me: I was so darn hungry but was still at least an hour away from Seattle so I decided to take an exit and eat first. However, it was the same usual suspects for several exits and suddenly I gave up and take the very next one. When I did, I realized that, after the exit, I had to drive several Kms before hitting those chain restaurants. Almost admitting defeat, I then look at the other way and see Johnny’s Burger Stop, a place that I have seen everytime I drive through I-5 to Seattle because of a sort of unique feature: that chimney with smoke puffing out. As they say, when there is smoke…
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Tagged as:
Burgers,
Seattle
