Portland Foodie Adventures - Day 1

Last night after a pleasant dinner with L’s brother and family, we checked into our hotel in downtown Portland, unpacked and then I promptly dragged L out into the freezing cold so we could hit up Voodoo Doughnut.

It must have been the excitement factor which gave me courage, because as we were walking there, L kept saying how sketchy the area looked, and I kept saying “Nah, it’s just like Berkeley”. However, when we walked through the neighborhood again today, I realized it really is very sketchy, and it’s a wonder that we weren’t mugged or murdered or something :).

Anyways, back to the donuts. So I’ve heard about Voodoo from my friends as well as on Man vs Food (go Adam!). It’s a tiny little hole-in-the-wall type of place and the whole vibe really reminded us of Berkeley, but there isn’t really any food establishment in Berkeley quite like it. Afterwards, L said that Voodoo reminded him of an Annapurna which sold food instead of weird clothing – hah! We got two donuts, a Bacon Maple bar and a Portland Crème.

Bacon Maple bar:

Portland creme...like the 2 frosting eyes? cute :).

Both were pretty good and not as greasy as I expected. I liked the Bacon Maple bar a lot – the bacon was thick-cut, smoky and cooked just right. In combination with the sweet maple glaze, it really hit the spot. The Portland Crème I was not as impressed by. Maybe because I had to eat half the donut before I got to the crème center, and when I did, it reminded me of condensed milk. I was tempted to buy a t-shirt as a souvenir, but as you can see from the pictures, their slogan is “The Magic is in the Hole”, so my better judgment won :).

Today was our first official exploration day, and priority number one for me was the food carts! And such good fortune! Our hotel is literally steps away from a cluster of food carts :).

Food carts mostly only accept cash, so there is conveniently an ATM machine smack dab in the middle of two of them....funny, huh?

For breakfast, we hit up Spella coffee and I had a delish Ethopian coffee cappuccino.

The friendly peeps at Spella recommended the Brunch Box food cart for breakfast so we ventured up a few blocks to another cluster of food carts.

The Brunch Box makes their own English muffins, so I ordered an egg, mushroom and cheese sandwich on English muffin and L ordered a sausage, egg and cheese on Texas toast. Very yummy.

After breakfast, we took a digestion break and went off to explore Washington Park, but of course headed back in time to hit up more food carts for lunch :). We returned to the cluster near our hotel (Alder and Southwest 9^th) and here’s what we ate:

Ziba's Pitas

Ziba is a super sweet Bosnian lady who serves pitas filled with a savory filling of your choice: Burek (beef, onions and potatoes), Zeljanica (spinach, eggs, cottage cheese), Sirnica (eggs, feta cheese, sour cream, cottage cheese) or Tikvenica (zucchini). The pitas aren’t your typical pita bread. The dough is flaky and baked, more like a strudel. She serves it with a yummy roasted red pepper sauce (ajvar) that has a nice spicy kick to it, as well as a sour cream and cucumber salad. The pitas themselves range from $5 to $6 each and a full plate (pita plus ajvar and salad) costs about 75 cents more.

We had the Burek today which is pictured below and it was very, very tasty.

Tomorrow, I’m planning to try the spinach and the zucchini pitas cuz I realized after the fact that you can order half pita combos, yay :)!

Tabor (Southwest 5^th and Oak/Stark parking lot)

Tabor is owned by a happy Czech couple and they are known for their Schnitzelwich sandwich. It’s a schnitzel (breaded and fried meat cutlet) served on a crusty ciabatta bread roll, along with horseradish mayo, red pepper spread and crunchy lettuce leaf. You can choose between a chicken or pork schnitzel. We had the pork schnitzel and I was not forewarned about how strong the horseradish mayo was, so towards the end L had to finish it, because I am weak sauce when it comes to horseradish :). The schnitzel was great - tender and well-seasoned. They also serve goulash which I was sorta tempted to order but couldn’t pass up on the schnitzel. I was trying to pace myself for the later eating to come after all :).

The Schnitzelwich!

Finally, we ate at “Best of Brazil”.

Brazilian food in Portland too! Yay! By this time, we were pretty full even though we shared the two previous dishes. So we settled on just ordering 2 coxinha, which are little fried dumplings filled with shredded chicken and a Guarana soda. L had fun chatting it up in Portuguese with the 4 other Brazilians who were there, including the sweet lady owner.

This post is turning out to be a mini-novella so I will save my dinner report (Nostrana) for tomorrow! Until then, bon appétit!