Portland Food Scene

  

For my birthday I visited the enchanting city of Portland, Oregon.  I fell in love with the tree-lined neighborhoods, the bookstores and cafes, the plethora of bikes and bike lanes, the river and bridges, and the luscious mountains surrounding this tiny little city.  Much like the show Portlandia describes it, it's a place where young people go to retire.  (Side note, I actually saw the star of Portlandia, Fred Armisan, at the Northface store in Portland while I was visiting!)  Retire, that is exactly what I began dreaming of while I was there: quitting my job, renting a big old house in Portland with a garden for only $200 a month, and spending my days biking, gardening, and crafting with cut out birds.  Well, I'm not sure I'm really ready to move there, but at least it's a fabulous place to visit.  The best part of Portland is the endless number of wheat/sugar/dairy free restaurants for me to choose from.  The food culture is extremely conscious: vegan conscious, sustainable/eco friendly conscious, health conscious, and allergy conscious.  Along with some of the awesome food trucks, here are a few restaurants that I checked out:

Prasad  Prasad cafe (part of Pearl Yoga center in the Pearl district) was my little haven.  Jars of fresh ginger root and lemons line the shelves above the 100% gluten, sugar and dairy free dessert case!  I knew I was in the right place, when I ordered a soup (which is automatically served with gluten free bread from New Cascadia Bakery- see below) and the server asked if I wanted butter with that, and before the question even came out of my mouth he said, "Oh yes, it's vegan butter." Everything on the menu is vegan and sugar free, and almost everything is wheat free.  I went there everyday that I was in Portland, either for a fresh fruit smoothie, or a dragon bowl full of veggies and seaweed, or a gluten/dairy free yogurt parfait, or the amazing canyon cookies or chocolate truffles- all wheat/sugar/dairy free!  This will be forever my go-to place in Portland!

New Cascadia Bakery
The day I rode my rental bike to New Cascadia Traditional Gluten Free Bakery, it started to rain and pour, hence why I ran into a Northface store to buy a raincoat and ended up seeing Fred Armisan (I know, it sounds crazy that I didn't bring a raincoat or umbrella to Portland, but it was only a problem this one day.)  With the rain and celebrity sightings, by the time I arrived across the bridge to New Cascadia, I was too late for their sandwiches or pizza, which I had been waiting for all morning.  So I bought some honey bread instead.  Luckily, it was moist, light and addicting....I kept gnawing on pieces of it all day long.

Sweet Pea Bakery
Portland is known for it's vegan scene, and my friend Carla showed me the "vegan mall," as they call it in the south east area of Portland: a strip of shops and restaurants and cafes all serving and selling only non-animal products.  Sweet Pea Bakery, near the corner, with it's avocado colored walls serves all vegan baked goods and includes a gluten free section.  I didn't actually buy anything while I was there, as I was only in the mood for something savory, but everything looked beautiful.

Pok Pok  Well, I waited over an hour in the cold for a table at Pok Pok... and it was worth it!  It's like the Burma Super Star of Portland, if that means anything to you, extremely popular, long waits, but unique and flavorful food.  It's all Thai, but you won't see Pad Thai on this menu, instead it's full of authentic dishes well known in Thailand.  Some dishes contain wheat and many contain sugar and whiskey, but the dish I had was safe for me and insanely delicious.  It was a turmeric marinated catfish fried, over a bed of thin rice noodles, beautifully sliced scallions, cilantro and dill, topped with peanuts.

Bamboo Sushi
As you probably know, I am a sushi junkie.  I can eat sushi every day, any time of day.  But, I do know that sushi is not necessarily a very earth-friendly/sustainable cuisine.  Which is why it was so great to eat at Bamboo sushi, which serves delicious and sustainably raised/caught fish.  But even more importantly, they make a gluten free tempura roll - I was in heaven!  (Sorry for no photos of the sushi...I was so excited about the food I forgot to take a picture!)

I know Portland is known for it's coffee, but my body can't handle caffeine.  This is a "wellness toddy" from Prasad, made with fresh grated ginger, lemon, honey, cayenne and echinacea.  Salud!

This is a smoothie from Prasad, but more importantly, notice my friend Rosalie's kick-ass kale tattoo in the background to the left (one of the many reasons we are friends...)