Me, sauced a little, at Portland's Saucebox where I'd had a few delicious house-infused kaffir-lime gin concoctions and was practicing my Yanni impression by candlelight.
Right, where were we...went to Portland recently for a long weekend--Halloween in fact. It made me a bit homesick. The city reminds me of a cross between Park Slope, Brooklyn and Tribeca. And lucky us, the weather was absolutely perfect.
We stayed downtown at the Hotel Lucia, a hip boutique hotel with cool photography. It's got a good central location perfect for super-shopping, something I don't do very often, but feel the need to do more now that I'm not living in NYC and the local Medford mall is pretty much a pockmark on society. Yes, I know that makes me sound like a snob; so be it.
On Friday, we got in around noon and had lunch at Paragon in the Pearl District. Really good jerk chicken sandwich btw. From there, we met our friend Dave Griswold, the President and Founder of Sustainable Harvest, a fair trade coffee importing company based in Portland, and took a tour of his office. Sustainable Harvest was the first, and still is the largest, coffee importer to source exclusively from small family farmers and cooperatives, and currently purchases from over 100,000 growers in 15 countries. It's been ranked one of Inc. Magazine’s Inc. 5000, which lists the fastest growing companies in America. Dave is such a nice guy and does awesome work. He's also a new Customer Experience Council member (yay!). After a beer or two on the office rooftop deck, we went to Korean for dinner (alas, no good Korean in Southern Oregon) and totally stuffed ourselves at Toji Korean Grill House. My only complaint was that the soondubu was not spicy enough. Then off to Saucebox for music, drinks, dessert, and, admittedly, a late night.
Saturday, we got up early and had a very good New York-style breakfast at the newly opened and unsurprisingly packed Kenny & Zuke's Deli. Excelled latkes and they also have housemade pastrami, smoked salmon, and the like. Great way to start the day. I then went on a shopping rampage that covered the Pearl, Hawthorne, Northwest 23rd and Downtown.
My bounty included a military-style coat from BCBG, vintage shoes from Imelda's, and super cute gifts from Anthropologie, Moulé (a sleek high fashion gift & clothing shop hailing from Canada), Sole (exactly what you'd think it is), Cargo (Asian artifacts & antiques), and Powell's (the largest independent used and new bookstore in the world). We even managed to stop by Foster and Dobbs so Jeff could try Mario Batali's dad's infamous mole salami. (The actual store is based in Seattle.)
It being Halloween weekend and all, we were treated to a zombie parade past our hotel (mmm...brains) and then off to dinner at the French mega-bistro, Fenouil. We made a last-minute decision to see Australian chanteuse Sia at the very happening Doug Fir Lounge (next to the also very happening Jupiter Hotel which has been getting a lot of press lately--kind of like Portland's version of Phoenix Hotel in San Francisco). Finally, back to Saucebox because I had become absolutely obsessed with their kaffir-lime cocktails.
A sublime truffle omelet, waffles and spicy bloody marys at the sophisticated Bluehour restaurant the next morning and then back down I-5 to Ashland.
Portland's the nearest big city to us (no, Eugene doesn't count)...and worth the 3 1/2 hour drive. I wish I could go there every week!
