Fun-filled Days in Portland - Day 2 (Day 1 was traveling)

For the first time in all these years we've been visiting the Mooregons in Portland, we took the opportunity to play tourist. And did we have fun! Since the boys were in school, Kathy was free to join us on the adventure through the Pearl District.
From our recent trip to NYC and a food tour we did there, we scheduled one for Portland. The Epicurean Excursion took us to about a dozen places.

Our first stop was Cacao - for some drinking chocolate. Oh boy was it yummy! No Swiss Miss here. It was melted dark chocolate with a little cream to keep it smooth. (If I had been by myself, I probably would have licked the cup clean.)

Yes, that is bacon dipped in dark or milk chocolate!

The we visited the Flying Elephants Deli to sample some of their soups. A tomato-orange soup was delicious!

Our guide, Bob, explaining the two different kinds of coffee we were going to sample from Stumptown Coffee. One was from Ethiopia and the other from Honduras. Both were very good!

Our next stop was HotLips Pizza. We sampled their homemade berry soda. And the pizza was zucchini, onion and brie on the thinnest crust ever! We enjoyed this stop a lot!

We were excited about our next stop, Pearl Bakery, because of Andrea's new job at the bakery in Atlanta. Now we would get to see first hand what she does on a daily basis, only on the other side of the country.

Before we could go behind the scenes at the bakery, we were required to don the oh-so-attractive hairnets. Aren't we just the fashion statement? :o)

Front counter of the Pearl Bakery.

Yummy breads and pastries!

I'm not quite sure what's she preparing, but this was about the 8th pound of butter she was adding to the bowl.

More bakery activities.

We visited the Blossoming Lotus (yoga studio and vegan cafe) where we tasted cashew hummus and flatbread made completely of seeds held together with date paste. I think we all agreed it was the most delicious hummus we've ever had.

While we didn't stop, we walked past one of the four locations of the famous Portland Food Carts. Anything you want is there, fresh made and reasonably priced. (We would save a visit there for the next day when we had time.)

Next we visited a wine and chocolate bar. (I knew Portland was well-known for its beer pubs, but not so much for the chocolate. Seems like we tried a lot of chocolaty things on the tour.)

We also visited one of the 57 McMenamins pubs called Ringler's where we tried 4 of their beers (Ruby, IPA, Hammerhead, Terminator). Having been to several McMenamins locations, we were familiar with their offerings and agreed we like Ruby the best.

No tour would be complete without finding an establishment with the name Jones in it. Our final stop was a Cupcake shop, which ironically, is a type of bakery Andrea has said she wants to open. We tried mini chocolate and vanilla cupcakes. (In Portland there are two cupcake shops with the other being just 7 blocks away. Supposedly the other has better icing. If we didn't have to get back across town, we might have done a taste-test.)

For a tour we weren't sure was going to happen, we had a great time! Our guide was knowledgeable, humorous and quite personable. Perhaps next time we'll try one of their other tours.

After the boys got home from school, we played a little and then relaxed. I was working on a NY Times crossword puzzle and Nate wanted to know what that was all about. So, I explained how it worked and together we were able to fill in a few blanks. It may have been short-lived, but Nate remembered the next day to save the paper so we could check our answers.

A fun full day in Portland!