In Search of Great Places in Portland

Last post I mentioned our Seattle visit, which was a blast. A wedding, perfect weather and a gorgeous city in the throes of an economic and cultural boom. What’s not to love? After three nights there we hopped on the Amtrak train headed south, to Portland. Thought about renting a car and enjoying the scenic splendor that is the Pacific Northwest, but our friends out there advised taking the train; fast, cheap, beautiful scenery, and no traffic hassles. For $26 per ticket, it was the way to go and we were off to check out as many great places in Portland as we could in five days.

Anyway, we arrived at Portland’s Union Station at 6pm and hit the ground running. Our friends Matt and Tanya met us at the groovy old bar in the train station, Wilfs. From there they took us to the first of about 1500 places we hit over the next four days. Some of our favorites included:

Laurelthirst, our first stop after Wilfs, and a perfect way to kick off our Portland visit. We walked up to the place, opened the door and live music flooded out. We followed our hosts as they weaved through the buoyant crowd of t-shirt and shorts wearing dancers and (excellent) beer drinkers. I could tell right away that this was a beloved, local pub.

Prost! (and the adjacent Mississippi Marketplace food carts) Our first full day in town we took a bike ride (one of the very best ways to explore a city, due to the mobility/direct interaction quotient) and made our way over to Mississippi Avenue, home of roughly 24-thousand restaurants, breweries, bars and food carts. We settled on lunch from the carts—almost never a bad move—and took our feast to the sunny deck of the German beer hall type joint that overlooked the lot of eatsmobiles. Fresh weissbier and spicy, saucy BBQ on a warm wooden deck, alive with happy local lunchers? Now that’s perfection. And get this: the BBQ was vegan, so Wifey Mae was happy, and I felt great afterwards, ready to press on. And press on we did, mes amis. Press on. We did.

Momo (happy hour, outside on the back patio): Now, this place I loved for situationally specific reasons. Number one, we met a good ol’ Portland friend there we hadn’t seen for a while. Number II, they had a back patio, and it was a perfectly gorgeous 83-degree day. Number C, it was happy hour, which needless to say makes me happy right there. And number finally, it was serve-yourself as opposed to table service, which helped expedite the, you know, beverage-procurement process in a louche/divey-bar happy hour setting.

The Wife picked out the Multnomah Whiskey Library as our stop after Momo’s, and what a choice it was. Soaring ceilings, elegant and chill, and one of the finest cocktail presentations I’ve ever seen. I ordered a martini, she ordered an old fashioned. Three minutes later a gent rolls up with a beautiful wooden cart and mixed us up a couple o’ humdingers, served up with warm hospitality. It was a damn delight.

Ah, the McMenamins empire. I love what they do with their buildings and landscaping, and the historic McMenamins Grand Lodge just outside Portland is a beauty. Our formerly Brooklyn-based friends trucked us out there for dinner, and for the decor and art alone it was worth the trip. The entire place (a former retirement home for old Masons with an orphanage on the side, a pretty cool backstory) is tricked out in mystical, Masonic-themed splendor. The former doctor’s office in the basement is now a billiard room with a little bar and pinball machines. Upstairs there’s a movie theater and dozens of hotel rooms, and on the main floor an open, visually stunning (in a funky, hippie-chic sort of way) dining room. I got a beer flight which was pretty darn good and some satisfying comfort food.

Deschutes Brewery: A monster of a place in Portland’s Pearl District, and worth the visit. Come on: who doesn’t like a big, lively local brewpub? That’s a standard go-to for us when we’re in a town, and the missus doesn’t even like beer. It’s the food and atmosphere that makes places like this an almost never-lose proposition, and in this case the beer was excellent too. Again, I got a flight, my usual move at a place I’ve never been that brews its own, and I enjoyed every sweet li’l glass. Got a pretzel, too, with creamy dippin sauce, and how can that be a bad move? Warm salty starch and fat = delish. Place was roaring with good energy and a lively crowd.

Peninsula Park Rose Garden  Going to Portland without smelling the roses is like not getting a glimpse of the Golden Gate Bridge when visiting San Francisco. A small travesty of sorts. That didn’t happen to us. One of our gracious hosts led us here on bikes on yet another sunny, 80-something-degree afternoon. Look, I love a city vacation, but at some point I want to balance out all that concrete with some grass under my feet. The park was a dynamite place to slow down, take it easy, and yes, smell the roses after several days of non-stop running around town. I wish I’d brought a beach towel. Saw several bookish chicks camped out on the garden’s grassy walkways, reading their heads off, and it looked like a capital idea.

So there’s six great places in Portland to get you started. And the true fact is two of the best places we fell in love with were the homes of our kind, generous hosts, where we enjoyed a rowdy backyard crawfish boil one night and later a couple beautiful home-cooked meals on the back deck, surrounded by a veggie/herb/fruit tree garden. The hospitality of good friends in their beautiful homes will trump 99% of anything else out there, always.

That said, when in Portland, do it up. Rent bikes, go downtown, get out to the neighborhoods, and by Jove, smell them roses!