Road Trip: Portland

About a month ago I said, "I'm going to take Friday, May 11th off of work.  Let's go to Portland!"  I don't know that Aaron thought I was serious...but I was!  ...and as the day got closer and closer we both got more and more excited. 

It was only a day and a half, but sometimes it doesn't take much to recharge. In this case it just took some art, great food and some bright sunshine.  It also gave us a chance to visit Gilt and change out some of Aaron's jewelry there.  Everyone there was SUPER-nice.  Plus the store was full of wonderful vintage and art jewelry.  It was a feast for the eyes.

With weather in the 80's the fountain was a gathering place for kids from around the city.

We spent Saturday morning at the Portland Farmers Market - which was incredible!!  It was table after table after table of organic freshies!  There were all sorts of small batch products.  It all looked sooooo good.

We dined at Pok Pok, which you may have seen in Bon Appetite a couple of months ago.  It's some really innovative Southeast Asian food.  They were flavors we never have, but not so weird that it was unpalatable.  We had fried catfish with noodles and a yummy sauce on it, curried noodles, and braised/curried pork (well, Aaron had that one, but Anner admits to tasting the curry).  We'll leave it to Bon Appetite or any of the myriad of online reviews to describe it.  We'll just say it alone was worth the drive from Seattle and the 40 minute Thursday night wait.

We brunched at Tasty and Son's.  The name alone drew us in, but everyone (and we do mean every single website we researched) recommended T&S.  This is the sweet biscuits and blueberry compote.  It was sweet, buttery, flaky, light, and absolutely soaked in blueberry flavor with fresh whipped cream.  We've gotta learn how to make these at home.  Simply amazing! 

We also wandered through the Saturday Market.  Aaron bought this mask for the garden.  I say, Aaron imitating Art.  So cute.  Both of them.

We went to a couple other galleries, walked all over town from end to end, explored a couple of adorable little neighborhoods, bought a few artisan items, relaxed, dined at a couple other good restaurants including South Park - where we had the coolest server ever, and we went to a champagne, dessert and coffee bar called Pix.  One word: Yummy.

Finally on the long trip home Aaron's car passed the 100,000 mile mark.  We look forward to the next 100,000 miles!