PORTLAND DAY 1:

The beginning of our crazy month really started with our trip to Portland. (not that we had planned it that way) The trip was planned as a casual trip - neither of us had ever been to Oregon, and I wanted to visit my good friend, Jess, and meet her fiancee. And more importantly, tickets on Alaska Airlines were super cheap.

So we left on the first flight out from Oakland (aka the cheapest flight) and landed in Portland super early in the morning. Now, my friend Jess actually lives in Eugene, which is 2 hours from Portland, so she wasn't able to pick us up from the airport and since I knew we have a couple of hours to burn while we were waiting for her, I planned some places to visit while waiting to meet up with her.

It was raining when we arrived, so it was nice to duck into Pearl Bakery, a well known spot located in the Pearl District of Portland. The space is huge - probably a converted warehouse, like many things in the Pearl District, with 20 ft ceilings. Though most of the space was taken up by the production area, there was a small seating section in front, filled with locals. We were able to grab a table for two, and ordered a few pastries and coffee for breakfast. Here's the line of locals waiting to order:

Here are two of the things we ordered. Tom got the plain croissant, I got the apricot danish.

Then I got a chocolate croissant and Tom get a donut type pastry thingy.

Overall, the pastries were pretty good. The croissants were nice and flaky, though I like mine to be cooked darker, so they're even flakier and crunchy.

After our breakfast, we headed over to Powell's Books where we spent an hour hanging out and waiting for my friend to meet us. We she finally showed, we checked out some chocolate shops together and then visited the Portland Saturday Market - a mix of outdoor crafts and food booths. Though it was raining, there were still quite a few people out. Here's a row of food booths:

It took a while to decide on what to eat, and we all ended up ordering from the same Philly cheesesteak booth. (Maybe I was persuaded by their display food).

Here's my chicken cheesesteak with ketchup on top. It wasn't the best thing I've ever eaten. The chicken had been precooked, so the cheese was just added on and heated until the cheese melted. However, I was hungry, so I ate in anyway. (We later learned that the "good" food booths were in another section of the market.)

Allright, so of course, since we were in Portland (and we were close by) we made our first of two trips to Voodoo Donuts. Below is a combination of photos from the two trips that we made (I didn't want to write up two different posts). First, we start off with the line outside of the donut shop. And yes, it was raining at the time.

It took about half an hour to get through the line and up to the front counter, but we had fun being entertained by an aging Elvis, in full Elvis regalia, singing Heartbreak Hotel.

When you finally make it indoors, you find a tiny, cramped space. This photo is from our second visit, which was on a weekday afternoon, so there were a lot less people there:

You definitely feel the pressure to order fast, with everyone waiting behind you. I got Tom the maple bacon bar, while I got the No Name - a donut with chocolate, rice krispies, striped with peanut butter. Here's Tom's maple bacon bar:

He thought it was just ok. I think he thought the maple part was overly sweet. Meanwhile, I also had a lukewarm reaction to my No Name. I thought it'd be coming with cocoa krispies, not regular krispies and they were a little soggy, so it was just eh. (The Old Dirty Bastard, which I had a few days later was much much better, though).

And here's a photo of the half dozen donuts my friend, Jess, bought. Notice the pink one - it's bubblegum with a piece of bubble gum stuck to it.

After the donuts, we did the two hour drive to Eugene where my friend actually lives. There we were able to rest and play with her pets before eventually heading out for dinner.

We initially tried to go to a well known Southern restaurant, but it was packed and had a long wait. Instead we headed to a place called Beppe and Gianni's, a popular local Italian restaurant located in a converted Victorian house. This place was also filled with people, but we got a table within twenty minutes.

I would characterize this place as the average Italian American restaurant, except dressed up a little nicer. I apologize for the pictures in advance, the place was pretty dark, and I didn't want my flash going off. We started off with their famous appetizer of blue cheese with roasted garlic served with toast:

I thought the garlic was well roasted, and it wasn't too bad.

I then started with a Caesar salad, which was pretty average, and quite over dressed:

And for my entree I just got something simple - spaghetti with red sauce: The spaghetti ended up being pretty over cooked, so it was kinda mushy, and the sauce was fine. However, we were in Eugene, OR, I wasn't expecting spectacular food. And so our first bites were decent enough, just nothing stellar.