Oregon’s capital is an on-trend down-to-earth free-spirited infinite-superlatives place. It has one of the best food and beer scenes we’ve come across. But be warned, this is not your normal gentrified city. There is an edge to the place. The streets are littered with homeless folk, some wanderers just passing through, others the more desperate sort. For some reason they decide to make Portland their home for a while. Who can blame them. Portland is a cool place, even without a firm roof over your head. And to be fair, we never felt unsafe in Portland, its just an observation.
Our base for our short time was Evermore Guesthouse, a B&B in an old house that offered a new business model. No overbearing landlady who frets over your every move, these guys definitely operate a hands off approach. You check in with a code, there’s a note in your room giving you the run down and in the morning breakfast magically appears. We were convinced the place was run by elves. We liked it and recommend.
The biggest plus about our hotel was the fact it was walking distance to Pok Pok, a creative South East Asian restaurant serving up some of the best chicken wings you will ever eat in your entire life. Fact. I’m still trying to reverse engineer the recipe, if you have had better luck please share!
Then there are the countless food trucks you can try. These are colourful vans, parked into “pods”. They are spread out all over the city and some can be quite tough to find. A great place to start is Food Carts Portland website, which maps the hundred plus carts and also offers reviews.
Portland also seems a town obsessed by doughnuts. There is the “must visit” Voodoo Doughnuts, serving weird and wacky doughnuts 24/7. We especially liked the Portland Cream doughnut. However, our favourite spot was Blue Star. Their doughnuts were awesome, and went amazingly with stump town coffee.
Finally, you can’t go to Portland and not try some craft beer. We stopped in at Deschutes Brewery and had the sampler. It was the perfect way to round off a cracking couple of days in this laid back dreamers town.
h a m b a j a l a n 