portland: a city of food

It's been 2 weeks since we got back from our trip to Portland, and I already miss it.

It was a wonderful, and at times very stressful, trip.  The first few days were spent preparing for Kalie's wedding, but after Saturday it was all about relaxing and eating fantastic food!

Seriously the only photos I have of the trip are either of food or my cats, so here are the places we ate...

Sunday morning we woke up and drove out to Montavilla to eat breakfast at RedWood, a new restaurant that just opened in January. It was pretty delicious but it was nothing compared to Country Cat, which is only a half block away.

The best part of breakfast was, hands down, the Oatmeal waffles we ordered for the table.

I'm pretty sure that they were deep fried.  They had the perfect crunch and the most delicious flavor.

Monday we woke up with the intention of going to ____ for breakfast.  But after waiting outside for 20 minutes with no one to tell us how much longer it would take we decided to ditch that plan and head over to Helser's on Alberta.

My favorite part of the meal was the Scotch Egg I ordered on the side.

I Love Scotch Eggs!! It's like the perfect breakfast all wrapped up and deep fried.  Just add a dab of mustard and you're good to go!

After Helser's we headed down to Sellwood to meander around some antique stores and we stopped into Jade Bistro to grab a cup of tea.

The food looked so delicious that, even though we had just finished breakfast, The Man ordered a barbecue pork bao.

We didn't have time to go back for a real meal, but it's definitely on the list for next time we visit.

Our last full day in town we had our traditional Fat City Cafe breakfast, and it was perfect, as usual.

After pancakes, sausage, and chicken fried steak. We headed to Wieden and Kennedy to visit our awesome new friend Krystin.  I haven't been in side WK since I was 12 years old so it was great to get a little tour of the place. 

The entire building is filled with beautiful architecture, but what's really cool about Wieden & Kennedy are the unusual installations and various art pieces they choose to display within their office. 

Like the above photo. This is the Nest.  Completed in 2006, The Nest is a permanent installation by Patrick Dougherty.  It serves as creative meeting space, and from what I'm told it's also the interview space.  Inside The Nest is a large felt "sofa" and "pillows" created by Ja Felt to look like boulders.

Below is an installation created by the students of 12, an experimental school at Wieden & Kennedy.  The graphic is spelled out using over 100,000 clear pushpins, and if you look closely you can see the one red pushpin among the rest, a little metaphor if you will.

 As always our trip was too short, and I can't wait until I get to go back home again.