Oregon, U.S.A. – Saturday, May 25th to Tuesday, May 28th, 2019
I could only watch so many episodes of Portlandia before the desire to experience for myself what makes Portland weird went from the rhetorical “wouldn’t that be fun?” to the literal “how much does a roundtrip ticket cost for Memorial Day weekend?” The short trip was almost cancelled at the last minute when I came down with a bad spring cold, getting better just in time to pass it to Yiyan. Fortunately we planned a relatively relaxed weekend anyway and decided to push ahead, and we’re both very glad we did. Especially for my first time visiting the Pacific Northwest, I’ve never visited an unfamiliar city before that so instantly felt comfortably and familiarly like home. If only my company could open a studio there…
With rain persisting through most of our first day, and having gotten in late the night before, we opted for a very slow and low-key approach. We did, however, find time for a spur-of-the-moment ride on the Portland Aerial Tram to get our first overview of the city. Tickets cost less than $5.00 roundtrip, which would be a great deal if it were a tourist attraction, although the Portland Aerial Tram serves as a very real public utility for connecting the city’s South Waterfront district with the Oregon Health & Science University medical center at the top.
Here’s a video of the ride back down. Note that when we pass the support tower the cabin actually swings a pretty good deal considering there are no seats, making the Portland Aerial Tram a bit of a municipal thrill ride.
Afterward Yiyan drank hot tea and watched Netflix in our hotel, while I walked a couple blocks to the Oregon Historical Society Museum.
You know you’re getting an authentic regional experience when there’s an exhibit about the local high school.
The main attraction, as I was informed by the ticket attendant, was the newly opened “Experience Oregon” exhibit on the upper floor.
The exhibit starts with a well-produced panoramic film that very quickly makes clear the exhibit they are about to see is not going to shy away from addressing Oregon’s history of racial prejudice and exclusion, even if the topic makes certain people squeam. (“Louder for the folks in the back! Wait, that’s actually only me…”)
Inclusiveness aside, the rest of the exhibit was also surprisingly good (if only maybe a little bit too text-heavy), telling a thorough history of the state with a good mix of traditional artifact displays, interactive elements, and well-designed dioramas and set pieces. Given how hard it is to get consensus on a history exhibit, let alone get a healthy enough budget to produce displays of this quality, I was very impressed by “Experience Oregon”.
Elsewhere in the museum was a less-than-relevant temporary exhibition about The Beatles.
And a somewhat interesting exhibit about beer in Oregon called Barley, Barrels, Bottles, & Brews. Looks like a graphic designer had a ton of fun with this one, but with so few relevant artifacts or other points of engagement, I couldn’t help but think this might have worked better as a printed article than a physical exhibit.
One thing I liked was this display where you could smell different hops varieties and try to guess the aromas.
Either way, the museum was well worth the $10 admission and served as an excellent introduction to Oregon.
On a sunnier day, I took a self-guided walking tour around town to scout out a few landmarks and other sights that have helped keep Portland weird. At the corner of SW Salmon Street and SW Park Avenue above the salmon market is, appropriately, a salmon swimming through the bricks. Transcendence by Keith Jellum.
Pioneer Courthouse Square, with a rainbow love car and the Weather Machine kinetic sculpture.
The historic Three Kings Building with a work of public art.
Old Town Chinatown.
And of course a detour at the Portland institution that is Voodoo Doughnut, to enjoy later.
Also known as the City of Roses, the Portland Rose Festival ran this weekend. Didn’t go into the CityFair.
In the middle of this cross walk is the tiny Mill Ends Park, supposedly the smallest public park in the world to be officiated by the city. According to urban lore this park was originally dedicated for a leprechaun colony.
The Willamette River cuts through the middle of Portland, which is spanned by many bridges.
Even though Portland isn’t located by the coast, it still has a nice waterfront park.
Okay, time to move on to the next thing.
The International Rose Test Garden is located in Portland’s Washington Park. The garden is unique in that it’s not necessarily designed for aesthetic qualities but for professional horticulturalists to test and judge different and new rose varieties against one another in a regulated environment, with the results open to the public to explore. It’s also one of the key reasons that Portland has been nicknamed the City of Roses.
Yiyan loves roses, and even with her stuffy nose she was able to smell a few of the stronger scented varieties.
This rose, known as the Peace Rose, was originally being developed by a famed horticulturist in France during the outbreak of World War II. Just before the Nazi armies arrived and would have destroyed the gardens, they were able to evacuate a few of these specimens to the U.S. on one of the last planes out.
We were also told that this rose bush was grown from a cutting from a 1,000 year old rose from Germany. They’re only in bloom a couple weeks of the year, so we were very lucky to see it.
And that’s the International Rose Test Garden.
Apart from my interest in a couple small parks, one of our main motivations for visiting Portland was the culinary scene. While normally I wouldn’t put so much focus on food on this site, I ended up putting hours of research into which restaurants we should try to maximize our gastronomic experience, and the delicious results made me want to include a guide for anyone else who might want a meal in Portland. Alphabetically:
AFURI: This ramen joint honestly ranks well among the best ramen we’ve tried in Los Angeles, which is saying something. Part of that is apparently due to the quality of water in Portland, which allowed this small Japanese chain to make Portland the first American city to receive its subtle, delicate broth. Yiyan got their signature yuzu shio ramen, while I tried the more flavor-forward tonkotsu tantanmen.
Beast: No joke, I would have to rank this among the top five best restaurant meals I’ve ever had. We went for their Sunday Brunch special, and at $40.00 per person (tax free!) I’d say it was a real bargain. A cozy little space in a quiet Northeast neighborhood, they serve a pre fixe menu of seasonal cuisine that’s delivered to the communal tables at the same time, almost more like a live show than a typical restaurant experience.
Our experience started with a rhubarb clafoutis with whipped crème fraîche and candied bacon:
Then moved on to a dish of smoked salmon, asparagus, black garlic aioli, marcona almonds, and mint pistou:
Climaxing with Lan-Roc pork shoulder, oyster mushroom, carrots, turnips, sugar snap peas, radish, confit potatoes, and a poached duck egg with dijon hollandaise:
And finished with some delicious petit-fours.
Cacao Drink Chocolate: A craft chocolate store that offers samples of thick hot drinking chocolate. We tried a flight of classic French, cinnamon-infused Venezuelan, and a spicy dark chocolate.
Han Oak: This delightfully oddball yet homey restaurant (located in what’s essentially a backyard) tastes like it sits halfway between fine dining and sampling the food your Korean college roommate made in the dorms. No wonder it’s a David Chang favorite.
I started off with what they call an Umeboshi Highball:
The more traditionally styled chive dumplings are one of Han Oak’s most popular plates:
But then there’s the ‘Han Oak’onomiyaki, with an explosion of umami atop what I believe was an Eggo waffle:
Or the Korean fried chicken wings with “Essence of Instant Ramen” (Enough said!):
If that’s not enough instant ramen, there’s also the spicy rice cakes ramen, a thick and flavorful noodle dish (not soupy) that I now want to make at home:
Dessert was an “Et’han’ Mess”, a combo of strawberries, matcha powder, lychee, and bubble tea tapioca pearls:
Lardo: This was rated as one of Portland’s best sandwich stops, so for lunch I swung in and asked what their best sandwich was, which turned out to be the pork meatball bahn mi. Really good!
Le Pigeon: Serving modern French cuisine along Burnside, Le Pigeon came across my radar for being consistently ranked in every article I read as one of the best restaurants in Portland, and I couldn’t disagree with that assessment. Extremely high-caliber cuisine across every dish. My only regret is that I didn’t also get to sample the signature “le pigeon” dish. (Yes, the word means the same in French as in English.) Next time.
Starting with a butter lettuce salad:
The octopus and bone marrow was a very beet-forward appetizer. Not a huge beet fan but it won me over:
And the main course, a super hearty, incredibly tender beef cheek bourguignon:
Despite how full I was, we still found room for the foie-gras profiteroles. (Yiyan had two!):
And a cute (and complimentary) pigeon-imprinted chocolate truffle to cap it all off:
MÅURICE: We went here for brunch our last day, and after Beast, Han Oak, and Le Pigeon, I figured this place would have its work cut out for them to meet our expectations… and it still exceeded them! A charming French/Scandinavian style luncheonette near downtown, everything we tasted was unbelievably fresh.
Clams for breakfast? When they’re this fresh, yes!
A polenta clafoutis with poached egg and shaved asparagus:
And a lemon souffle pudding cake for dessert:
Olympia Provisions SE: Honestly, this might have been the only meal that was “only” a 4/5. Located in a reused industrial warehouse, Olympia Provisions specializes in charcuterie produced in-house but also offers a full menu. Unfortunately our first three dishes (which included a charcuterie board) all skewed towards the salty side, which got to be a bit too much over the course of the entire meal.
Poached asparagus with croutons & eggs:
Octopus a la plancha with chorizo:
The estofado de mariscos (a sort of seafood stew) was our favorite of the meal:
But it’s not just the meals, for there are also donuts! We actually scaled our donut ambitions back a ways due to Yiyan’s cold, but still managed to stop by a couple of locations. Such as the aforementioned Voodoo Doughnut for their famed bacon-maple bar.
While Voodoo is the most famous, Blue Star Donuts has crept up in name recognition for their excellent brioche-style donuts with inventive flavors.
We ended up sampling a blueberry bourbon basil, a raspberry rosemary buttermilk, an orange olive oil, and a CBD hazelnut chocolate custard. (Yiyan didn’t realize what CBD was until after we got it, which led to some frantic “will CBD get you high?” Googling before getting back in the rental car. It doesn’t but still tastes great.)
Yiyan’s favorite donuts came from NOLA Doughnuts, a New Orleans-inspired donut shop that specializes in square, flaky croissant-style donuts. (“Cronut” is trademarked elsewhere.) We ended up getting a salted double chocolate and a bourbon and toasted pecan donut, along with a few “donut bites” holes.
It’s not just what to see (and eat) in Portland, but what there is to discover just outside the city, where the Willamette and Columbia rivers fuel a densely green ecosystem. Drive a few miles south of Portland towards Oregon City and there’s a roadside scenic viewpoint overlooking the Willamette Falls.
Although they’re only 40 feet high, the Willamette Falls are actually the second largest waterfalls by volume in North America after Niagara Falls.
The amount of energy created by these falls means that this site has been used for industrial purposes since the 1800’s. However I believe there’s now an effort underway to clean up the falls and turn them into more of a tourist attraction that lets people get much closer to the falls than the current roadside configuration allows.
Northeast of Portland along the Columbia River (bordering Washington state) is the much more visually spectacular Columbia River Gorge, home to countless waterfalls. The Historic Columbia River Highway that winds along it was built between 1913 and 1926 as the first roadway in America specifically designed for scenic purposes instead of transportation. The Crown Point Vista House is one of the first major sights found along the route coming from Portland, located 733 feet above the river.
The Vista House uses a beautiful Art Nouveau design. Information about the Historic Columbia River Highway, restrooms, a gift shop, and a few small exhibits can be found inside.
But the real attraction is atop the Vista House, which offers a 360 degree viewing platform overlooking the Columbia River.
As the one rain-free day of the Memorial Day weekend the highway was pretty crowded, and Yiyan still wasn’t feeling well so we opted to limit the number of stops we made along the rest of the highway. The first (which I almost skipped and am very glad I didn’t) was the Bridal Veil Trail.
The trail leads to Bridal Veil Falls, a 120 foot high double fall.
Heavy traffic necessitated that we skip past a few more fall trails, stopping at the 174 foot tall Horsetail Falls, which are easily accessed from right next to the highway.
Finally, standing some 620 feet high is Multnomah Falls, the tallest and most famous waterfall in all of Oregon.
There’s a hiking trail leading to a bridge 100 feet over the falls. Although maybe “queue” is a better term than trail for a day like today.
We didn’t linger for long as the whole scenic area around the falls was completely rammed with visitors.
Nevertheless, we really enjoyed our time along the Historic Columbia River Highway, and would like to try more of the trails when it’s not so crowded and we’re not so sick. At this point we turned back to Portland so Yiyan could rest in the hotel while I got to spend a couple hours checking out Oaks Amusement Park.
Next: Oaks Amusement Park
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