PDX 2013

One year ago today, we were out in the Portland area spending time with family for Thanksgiving, and now, we have finally finished our trip recaps (for only the second trip ever!). This wasn't really a true vacation for us since it was just a family visit and we didn't really make any choices whatsoever as far as what to eat or what to do. As a result, we didn't go chronologically through our trip and the posts were a bit more of a mishmosh of memories and the food we ate. But we finally finished!

Only about half of our posts actually deal with the State of Oregon, but I don't have a Washington State picture too, so this will just have to do

You can find all the Portland posts here under the label PDX 2013. But if you're looking for something specific...

We had Chinese food in a couple of places, like a pretty good dim sum at Ocean City and a tasty Cantonese dinner at HK Cafe (still want more salt and pepper fish).

We had some sandwiches, like the one from the deli counter at the QFC grocery store and East Coast style sandwiches from Philly Bilmo's. (Both were fine, but we don't dream about those like the salt and pepper fish.)

We went grocery shopping (including at Costco) and also tried some grocery store products like Brazi Bites, which was some excellent pao de queijo.

Or maybe, finally, you want to read about our breakfast when we left and our breakfast when we came back (both in the NYC area, not PDX, but it's for the PDX trip so it counts).

As far as PDX 2013 goes, that's all we've got for you. We did visit some other places on previous visits to Portland that hopefully we'll get back to reflecting on someday, but as for last year's holiday visit, we're filing it away in the back of our minds because we're done with that!

Back from PDX

While we were out in Portland for Thanksgiving week last year, NYC was in a deep freeze. We kept checking the weather and back home it was mostly in the 20s with low wind chills. It wasn't hot in Portland and I was still wearing my down coat, but 40s and 50s felt wonderful when we thought about what faced us at home.

When we left the airport in Newark, it was a lovely 25 degrees with a "feels like" temperature of 14. Brrr.

I only mention the weather because our original plan had been to go home, drop our bags, and take advantage of the fact that we had a red eye flight by going out for breakfast. We were thinking maybe we would bike down to Russ & Daughters since it would be early enough to beat the crowds and we're usually not up at 8 am. But with wind chills of 14? Not going to happen. The furthest we were willing to walk was the short distance home from the train station. And breakfast? We picked it up along the way from the nearby Bread Factory Cafe. The best bagels and cream cheese? Definitely not. But it was a nice filling breakfast to calm our tummies after our travels and welcome us home.

I got a toasted onion bagel with scallion cream cheese, and A got a whole wheat bagel with scallion cream cheese. We really do love bagels and cream cheese. It was a satisfying end to our PDX trip.

QFC

For Thanksgiving lunch we found ourselves at QFC, one of the local grocery stores, with A's dad, picking up some sandwiches for lunch. One thing we knew for sure was that we didn't want to get a turkey sandwich!

So instead we got chicken breast and muenster cheese. We split the sandwich, so we picked the largest bread they had, which was the baguette, and piled on vegetables. Their selection of free vegetable toppings was actually fairly impressive, including artichoke hearts, carrots and roasted red peppers. We decided to go with mustard, lettuce, tomato, raw onions (except they forgot to give us those onions and I think it would have made the sandwich taste better), grilled onions, roasted red peppers, carrots, and cucumbers. I considered adding avocado for 50 cents but forgot by the time the topping adding time rolled around.

The size of the half sandwich was generous, but the flavor wasn't that great. All the cold cuts were supposed to be Boar's Head, but the flavors just seemed somewhat muted. Also, all those vegetables theoretically sounded like they would go well together, but they just didn't gel into one cohesive unit (or have very distinctive flavors), which was kind of disappointing.

I've always said that a sandwich tastes better when someone else makes it, but I think this sandwich disproved that theory. I'm pretty sure if I had the same ingredients at home and threw together this sandwich, it wouldn't taste any less exciting. Depending on how I put together the vegetables, it could potentially even be better.

That said, the sandwich was fresh, and it served its purpose, which was to tide us over between breakfast and the Thanksgiving dinner feast. We were just sad that it didn't have much flavor and didn't live up to our expectations.

Shopping in Portland

Our love of visiting grocery stores when traveling isn't just an international thing. Even when we don't leave the country, we still try to find time to stop and browse. Of course, on our Portland trip, we did more grocery shopping than usual because it was Thanksgiving week and we were tagging along with A's mom to pick up provisions for the week, but we were happy to go often and try as many stores as possible.

We have Costco at home, but every Costco is a little different, carrying local and market-specific products. One thing we noticed at the Portland Costco we visited was that there was a really extensive beer collection. That isn't really surprising since it's Portland, one of the country's craft beer capitals, and there were a lot of local brews there.

We picked up a case of Stone IPA for the week. Stone isn't a local Portland beer, but A was so excited to see a case full of it that we had to get it. We get some Stone beer at our local Costco now, but we didn't have any back then and we still don't have this sampler pack.

One thing that Costco carries on the West Coast but we've never seen east of the Mississippi (and don't know why!) is the giant bag of Hi-Chew. It's a great deal for the size and I really wish we could get it here. It's a 17-18 ounce bag with grape, strawberry, mango, and green apple candies. We love Hi-Chew candy and it's now become a thing on our West Coast trips that we go to stock up (kind of like the Hawaiian pilgrimage to Trader Joe's for cookie butter?).

Other than Costco, every grocery store we visited was one we couldn't go to at home. There was New Seasons Market, which seemed similar to Whole Foods, and had the most extensive "bulk bin" section I had ever seen. (We may have gotten some pine nuts to bring home since the price was so much better.) We went to QFC, which was more of a standard grocery store (more on QFC in the next post). The one we really enjoyed though was Fred Meyer, where we went multiple times. The prices at Fred Meyer often beat all the rest, the products looked great, and they didn't just carry food. They had a whole liquor shop and clothes and everything else you could want. It was like a Target with a full and better grocery store. We loved shopping and looking to see what was different from home.

Unlike the dairy sections at grocery stores at home, the ones in the Portland area were often overrun with Tillamook products. (That's a good thing.) We've known about and been fans of Tillamook since we learned about their Oregon roots and tried their cheese years ago (including on one of our flights).

We decided to pick up lots of yogurt for the week, so we tried a whole bunch of Tillamook flavors. As a general matter, the quality of the yogurt was good. The fruit flavors for the most part tasted natural, unlike some of those artificially sweet yogurt brands out there.

Although we did get some classic flavors like peach and lime, we tried to concentrate on flavors that really reflected Oregon. We picked up Oregon strawberry, mountain huckleberry, and marionberry (a blackberry that was developed in Oregon). Out of all the flavors we tried, the one we liked best was the marionberry.

One thing the Portland area grocery stores definitely did better than most of our regular stores is samples. There were tons of samples everywhere! Sometimes they would just leave fruit around, like all of these peeled Clementine slices.

Other times they gave out full cups of ice cream! Try finding that here.

We also had cookies, cheese, pumpkin bread, and more. Fred Meyer even had wine tastings (although we didn't partake). We love grocery shopping as it is, but all the free tasty treats made it such an enjoyable experience. I think even people who hate grocery shopping would like such a comfortable and welcoming environment. Look at how well the samples do at Costco.

We really had a fun time visiting the grocery stores out in the Portland area. We do most of our grocery shopping at Trader Joe's and Whole Foods (and sometimes Fairway), since most of the "standard" grocery stores out here are downright terrible. We wish we had options like this at home. The stores we visited were so spacious. The aisles were so large, the stores weren't crowded, and you could just shop at a leisurely pace without feeling rushed like you do at stores here in the city. We'd have so much variety with these stores if we had them at home and could get some great stuff!

Philly Bilmo's

We didn't dine out for many meals while in Portland, and only one of those was not Chinese food - our lunch at Philly Bilmo's (in Vancouver, WA). Funny how we came all the way from NYC to go to "an East Coast deli." The nice thing about Philly Bilmo's is that they use Amoroso bakery bread that they ship in from Philadelphia, so it's authentic.

Philly Bilmo's had cheesesteaks, hot and cold subs and hot dogs on the menu. We both decided to get cheesesteaks instead of subs. A's dad got the roast pork hot sub on garlic bread (no photo) which A thought was very tasty if a very, very small bit dry, but the barbecue sauce added a nice sweetness and more than enough moisture to get through the mildly dry pork.

We split a small side of fries with A's parents. They were thin and crispy. Not bad, but nothing very special.

M got an 8" loaded chicken cheesesteak, which had sliced chicken, onions, peppers, mushrooms and cheese. The primary difference between the loaded and the regular were all those extra vegetables, and M is always looking for more vegetable options. M was surprised that it was sliced grilled chicken instead of chipped chicken like a regular cheesesteak (which we've gotten before in a chicken cheesesteak sandwich). The sandwich wasn't bad, but she would just call it a grilled chicken sandwich instead of a real cheesesteak sandwich.

A got the 8" loaded cheesesteak which had the same ingredients as M's sandwich except it was beef instead of chicken. The meat and cheese had the perfect amount of saltiness and tenderness to taste really good. The onions and peppers added sweetness to balance out the salt, and the mushrooms added more texture and moisture. The beef was nicely chipped, and in the end this was a very good cheesesteak.

Our lunch at Philly Bilmo's wasn't bad, but with so many places to visit and a limited amount of time on our visits, we're not sure if we'll be back. Not a bad option though if you're in the area.

Philly Bilmo's, 2100 SE 164th Ave, in Vancouver, WA.

HK Cafe

Our first day in Portland continued with a family dinner full of delicious Cantonese dishes at HK Cafe, not far from where we stuffed our faces with dim sum earlier in the day. I've grown up going to family dinners at Cantonese restaurants, so many of the dishes we had were very familiar to me. I think this was the first time I'd gone out for a Cantonese dinner with A's family so it was like both worlds colliding!

The meal started out with some soup, a clear broth with, I think, fish stomachs and other fish parts. From what we remember, this was pretty good. It was a thick soup with lots of flavor in the broth. The fish stomachs had a soft yet crunchy texture similar to a sea cucumber that's been stewed. The stomachs themselves didn't have much flavor though.

One of our favorite dishes at dinner were these salt and pepper fish. I'm not sure what kind of fish they were, but they were small like sardines. They were deep fried so that you could eat them whole, heads, tails and all.

In addition to the salt and pepper seasoning, which gave the fish a little bit of a kick, the dish came with plentiful amounts of onions, scallions, and jalapeño peppers, which made wonderful toppings for our rice bowls. This was definitely something we would love to eat again.

There was this casserole dish which had beef, tofu skin, and vegetables. I don't remember that much about it except that I wasn't a huge fan of the meat in it and I thought it was a bit tough. It didn't make a lasting impression on A either. He prefers the casseroles that my family orders with lamb or beef tendon.

Roast chicken is usually a fixture in a Cantonese dinner, but I don't remember if I ate any of this. I usually go for the white meat pieces, but I think they were gone by the time I looked for them since the chicken wasn't very big and I had been so obsessed with eating the salt and pepper fish. A had a couple pieces of the dark meat and thought it was just like almost any other Cantonese roast chicken that we've had in other meals with my family. It was topped with fried garlic which is another nice topping for the rice.

A well-rounded Cantonese dinner always has leafy green vegetables, preferably with lots of garlic. These pea pod greens were plenty garlicky and so good. One of our favorite healthy vegetables though shockingly expensive. HK Cafe delivered a good version of these.

They also ordered some fish with sugar snap peas, carrots, and mushrooms. This was good, but there wasn't anything really special or different about this dish from other places. It was simply prepared but it was fairly healthy and the vegetables were crisp and fresh.

Some of the more interesting dishes you can get at Cantonese restaurants involve pumpkin. I've only had a variation on this dish a couple of times, but this was a pumpkin stuffed with braised (I think) meat (not sure what kind) and pieces of the pumpkin that were scooped out. It had a nice sweetness from the pumpkin, and that balanced out the saltiness from the braising liquid/sauce that everything was cooked in. The meat was okay, a little on the tougher side again (but just remember that I have a bias against that and probably notice it more than other people do).

My family usually orders this Japanese tofu dish where the tofu is cut into rounds and served with lots of vegetables, especially mushrooms. We like that dish so much that we added it to our wedding banquet menu. This version was different, but really good. There were greens on the bottom, but the tofu came in large columns instead of smaller round slices. We've always heard it described as Japanese tofu, but the restaurant explained that it's egg tofu (which after some research is actually just another name for Japanese tofu). It's made by beating eggs into the tofu mixture prior to pressing so it adds some richness and creaminess as well as keeping the tofu from falling apart despite its silken texture. It also came topped with some sort of scallion, onion, and mushroom saute.

There was a dish of stir-fried shrimp with mushrooms, carrots, and chives. I love chives and this dish was full of them. This was fairly standard but good.

The meal ended with a sweet tapioca soup with taro. We've noticed that many Cantonese restaurants don't really end the meal with red bean soup a lot of times these days. There's a lot of tapioca soups. This one was not bad.

Having quite a bit of experience with Cantonese dishes in the States, I would say that the food at HK Cafe was pretty good. The quality of the ingredients was, for the most part, quite good, and everything tasted really fresh. Our favorite was clearly the salt and pepper fish, but many other dishes like the tofu and greens were also well done. Those were probably our top 3. We left quite satisfied!

HK Cafe, 4410 SE 82nd Ave, in SE Portland.

Brazi Bites

While we were out in Portland last year, we had a discovery in the form of Brazi Bites. They're frozen Brazilian cheese bread (pão de queijo) snacks that come in various flavors and are made by a company based out of Portland. A's mom had bought a few bags and they became part of our Thanksgiving dinner. We love cheese breads, including pão de queijo and the similar French gougeres, so it's not surprising that we kept eating these.

We got to try both the original and jalapeño flavors. We think we liked the jalapeño one better, but both were excellent, cheesy, soft and chewy.

It would be great if we could get these at home, but sadly they don't appear to distribute where we are. Back in November, they only went as far east as the Plains, but it seems like they've now expanded to Florida, so maybe they'll be here soon! I guess we could buy them online, but we don't usually buy frozen food online. Hopefully Whole Foods up in the Northeast will carry them soon!

Ocean City

We love dim sum. We don't go very often because the lines/waits at so many places in NYC are horrendous. So when A's parents said we were going to dim sum straight from the airport, we had no complaints.

They took us to Ocean City Seafood Restaurant in Southeast Portland, which has dim sum from the roving carts. The carts kept coming and the plates kept landing on the table. We got all sorts of dumplings - shrimp, beef, pork and vegetables, and shrimp and chives. These were fairly standard dumpling renditions, and our favorite of these 4 was probably the shrimp and chives.

We also got curry chicken puffs (which tasted more like BBQ chicken pastries with not much curry), sticky rice (pretty good), chicken feet (good as always for A), peppers stuffed with shrimp cake (very tasty and M was very happy for some green vegetables), fried taro puffs (soft, stick to your ribs, and tasty), and eggplant (fine but nothing special).

And there was even more. Tofu pudding, egg tarts (fairly standard), shrimp rice rolls (also standard), and turnip cakes (always a favorite). A is always a fan of the tofu pudding as it's one of his favorite desserts. It came with the traditional ginger-sugar syrup-y soup. The nice thing about this soup was that it wasn't overly sweet like so many of them can be.

The dim sum was pretty good, but the brief taste of dim sum we had in Los Angeles earlier that year was still better (we are almost up to that in the LA recaps). Our best bets are probably SF, LA or Canada if we're looking for really delicious dim sum (outside of Asia).

We went back to Ocean City for a second dim sum meal later in the week with even more family members. Sadly our part of the group got held up at the gas station and arrived to a table full of partially eaten plates, so you will be deprived of close-up photos of most of the dishes we got. A lot of them were the same, except the majority of the dishes were beef and pork this time. There was also congee but we didn't get any of that, so can't comment on whether it was any good.

We did manage to get a few close-ups on the shrimp dumplings, taro cakes, fried sesame balls with lotus paste, and the pork buns.

Many of the dishes we got were similar to our first visit, except with meat instead. One dish that we got this time that we didn't get the first time that M really liked were the taro cakes. We ended up with both taro and turnip cakes on the table, which made us really happy.

We also got a plate of dry beef chow fun for the table, which was excellent. M is a big fan of chow fun and this is probably on par with some of the better ones she's had. Lots of scallions and bean sprouts, and the flavor was just right.

If we were to pick our three favorite things that we ate during our 2 meals at Ocean City, they would be:

For A - taro puff, chicken feet, pepper with shrimp cake.

For M - chow fun (without the meat), taro cake, pepper stuffed with shrimp cake.

We don't do much research before going out to Portland since we're visiting family and we don't really have much self-directed food time (if any), so we don't know where Ocean City ranks in the Portland dim sum hierarchy. (We visited a different place over four years ago that was excellent, but don't know how good it is now.) But we were really glad we got to fill up on some dim sum. Twice!

Ocean City Seafood Restaurant is located at 3016 SE 82nd Avenue in Portland, Oregon.

Breakfast at Newark

We left home at the absurd time of 4:45 am to travel to Newark Airport in time for our morning flight to Portland, Oregon. Since it was so early in the morning, there were few trains running, and our only options were to get to the airport with a little over two hours or barely one hour to spare. We're trying to change our bad habits of getting to the airport late, so we got there really early and decided to have breakfast.

For breakfast at the airport, M would normally go for non-breakfast foods like hot dogs or sandwiches, but this time, she needed something starchy to cushion a painkiller and went for a relatively boring toasted plain bagel with plain Philadelphia cream cheese. Everywhere in our part of Terminal C seemed to offer bagels and cream cheese for the same price, so she went to the one which looked like it had the most patrons and therefore the best turnover.

The bagel was fine but nothing special. There weren't a lot of options for the types of bagels or cream cheese like you would get in a regular bagel shop, but it served its purpose for breakfast.

A went to the best option in our part of Terminal C - Smashburger - to grab breakfast.

All morning A had been smelling and craving bacon, but when it came time for him to order he ended up switching gears and getting a Taylor Ham, egg, and cheese sandwich. The sandwich itself was tasty if a bit heavy. The ham is apparently something special in NJ, but A thought it just tasted like deli ham. The fried egg and cheese were tasty, and the sandwich was really filling. In the end, though, A had buyer's remorse as he still wanted some bacon.

Unfortunately, both our bagel and breakfast sandwich were pretty filling, so we didn't eat the sandwiches we brought from home to eat on our flight and they went to waste. We probably should have just eaten those for our breakfast, but with the smell of ham and bacon pervading the terminal food court area (which was right next to our gate), breakfast foods were on our mind. Next stop: PDX!

Thanksgiving Travels

We recently traveled to the Portland area for the Thanksgiving holiday, which was a nice break from the frigid temperatures of the Northeast. For the most part, there was sun, moderate temperatures, and clean Pacific Northwest air.

View of Mount Hood on our drive back from Costco

Our trip also meant that we got to try some new restaurants, which we'll blog about (hopefully sooner rather than later). Unlike a lot of our trip reports, this one will consist of just a few restaurant reviews, since most of the food we consumed was home cooking and holiday food. Hopefully with less posts to write, this will actually be a trip we finish writing about!