Getaway to Portland

Although one of the reasons for moving from McMinnville to Bend was to get farther away from Portland and its woes, we really do like visiting Portland. And after a solid month of being without our kitchen during its renovation, we really did need the change of pace. Back in the summer, Ann bought us tickets to see Richard Thomas in the touring production of "To Kill a Mockingbird."

While attending the play might have been the impetus for going to Portland, experiencing a wide variety of food was a secondary motivator. Bend is something of a food desert in that there are dozens upon dozens of places to get burgers, but finding other cuisine is a chore.

We left post-coffee in the late morning heading north up highway 97 to Madras after tanking up on gas in Bend. From Madras, we headed straight for Mt. Hood on US 26. The trip north had been pretty smoky, but we got a slight respite from Terrebonne to the west flank of Hood. In the sunlight going up and around Hood, the dark green Douglas Firs were accented on the roadside with scarlet Vine Maples and golden Aspens. That is the extent of our fall color in Oregon where the Douglas Firs way outnumber the people.

Back into the smoke on the west side of the Cascades, we came into Portland from the airport side before dipping south on I-205 and then cutting through town in Southeast to get some lunch. Ann chose a B&B in Southeast, so I limited my search for food and beverage to that quadrant of town. The only time we left Southeast is when we took a Uber directly across the river to Keller Auditorium for the show.

Looking for something different and unique, I decided to give the Norwegian food at the Viking Soul Food trailer a shot for lunch. In fact, tasting styles of food that are unavailable in Bend drove all our dining choices in Portland. We arrived somewhere in the 2:30 hour and pretty much had the food cart pod where VSF is located to ourselves.

Viking Soul Food Airstream Trailer Hiding Behind Tent

We tried a couple of different lefse wraps, one filled with smoked steelhead trout and arugula, the other with pølse (a mild pork sausage) and surkål (sweet and sour red cabbage).The lefse, traditional Norwegian flatbreads made with potato in the dough, were extremely tender and delicious. We also got a Kraken Snack, a fun little riff on a tuna melt made from herring and horseradish cream on rye bread topped with melted Jarlsberg cheese. The food was tasty enough and just the right amount to hold us until dinner.

Kraken Snack and Pølse Lefse Wrap

Ann Tucks into Smoked Steelhead Lefse Wrap

Next up was our opportunity to try a new brewery. Our Portland go-tos have been Culmination and Breakside. We have never visited Ruse before, but it has been on my list ever since I first tasted their beers. I do believe they are making some of the very best beers in Portland (and Oregon as well). Located in the tastefully renovated Iron Fireman Collective building, the tap room is airy, light, rustic, and quasi-industrial in feel. We had a hard time picking from among the nine fresh hop beers on offer so we let our bartender pick for us.

Ruse Tasting Room

One of Nine Fresh Hops on Tap at Ruse

After two beers, we headed a few blocks over to our B&B to relax before dinner. We have a short list of places in Portland at which we'd like to eat. Given that it was a Tuesday night, many places on the list were not open. We selected Kachka, serving Russian and East European fare. Our B&B was a half-hour walk from the restaurant so we had a leisurely stroll though Southeast and the beautiful Ladd's Addition neighborhood to reach it.

We were seated immediately in the busy restaurant and when our server came to the table to greet us, we asked her to order for us. She chose well, including the horseradish-infused vodka that we toasted with. Ann swore up and down that she was not going to drink straight vodka (weird coming from a woman whose favorite cocktail is a filthy vodka martini) but she did! And she loved it.

We started with horseradish-infused vodka and then I ordered a round of Żubrówka flavored with buffalo grass (well, not really). The FDA has never approved buffalo grass as a food additive because it contains coumarin and so the vodka we were drinking is chemically flavored. Although the flavor is similar to real buffalo grass, it is not the same thing that I used to bring back from European duty free shops.

Cheers! Horseradish Vodka

Our server ordered us several small plates: tomato salad, smoked Baltic sprats on rye, deviled eggs flavored with the same sprats, and two dumplings, one meat and one cheese. The meat dumplings (Siberian pelmeni) were much tastier than the farmer cheese-stuffed tvorog vareniki. When we were nearly stuffed, she brought out a small clay casserole of rabbit haunch braised in sour cream with porcini, sour cherries, and whole garlic cloves.

Comments on the food: the tomato salad was fun even though the tomatoes were not terribly ripe. The sprats on rye were one of the best single bites I have ever eaten. The deviled eggs were blah. The dumplings were fun and the meat ones were very tasty while the cheese ones needed a little more seasoning. The rabbit was good, but I missed the porcini in it. Don't let me forget to add that the house-made bread was delicious. All in all, a wonderful dining experience.

Heirloom Tomato Salat with Ukrainian Tahini and Jimmy Nardello Peppers

Baltic Sprat Buterbrodi with Parsley Mayo and Hardboiled Egg

Sprat Deviled Eggs

Siberian Pelmeni (Beef, Pork, Veal, and Onion) and
Tvorog Vareniki (Farmer's Cheese and Chive)

Two Breads, Butter, and Salt

Rabbit in a Clay Pot
Braised in Smetana, Porcini, Sour Cherries, and Garlic Cloves
with Crispy Draniki (Potato Pancakes)

Annie Taking on the Żubrówka (Buffalo Grass Vodka)

Sitting Indoors Under Tree Branches

Walking back to our B&B along Division Street, we ambled past Salt & Straw ice cream shop. There is one thing that Ann cannot resist and that is ice cream. On the other hand, I am lactose intolerant and so I hate her a little bit each time she gets ice cream, which I love but cannot eat. And invariably, she tries to stick a taste in my face, not truly understanding how painful eating it really is. I was taken with some of the very creative flavors on offer: Beecher's Cheese with Apple Pie Cinnamon Rolls, Pear and Blue Cheese, Arbequina Olive Oil, and Strawberry Honey Balsamic with Black Pepper. 

Coffee and Caramel: Ann's Go-to Flavors

After a restful night at our B&B, we had a leisurely day ahead of us with nothing to do before the show at 7:30pm. First thing, I booked a Uber for 6:30 and then started wondering about what to do for the remainder of the day. The night before, I had found a pretty decent coffee shop just two blocks away from our B&B, so we walked there for our morning cup.

I figured that Portland might have some decent bagels for breakfast unlike Bend. After coffee, we walked another few blocks to Spielman Bagels, before wandering through Ladd's Addition on the way back to the B&B. I was shocked at the quality of the bagels, the best since we used to have them brought down from H&H Bagels in Manhattan. One of the great things about living on the East Coast was that someone was always going into the City and would often schlep bagels back.

Leisurely Coffee

Damn Fine Bagel: Spielman Bagels

Back at the B&B, we put together a game plan for the afternoon: a large late lunch in lieu of dinner when we would be at the show and then run back by Ruse to pick up some beer to take back to Bend. Our good friend Tim loves Ruse and Citra hops, so I made sure to get some Citra fresh hop beer for him.

For lunch, I chose Tierra del Sol, a Oaxacan food truck at the Portland Mercado, simply because I love Oaxacan food (which may be the best in all of Mexico) and there is no place in our area to get it. I was especially in the mood for a tlayuda (a very thin, flat, large corn tortilla topped with lard, black beans, and other toppings depending on the vendor). A total bonus that I ordered when I spied it on the menu: a tetela de frijol, a black-bean stuffed thick blue corn tortilla cooked on a comal and folded into a triangle, most awesome street food.

Waiting on our Oaxacan Street Food

Portland Mercado: Home to Many Different Latino Food Trucks

Blue Corn Tetela de Frijol

Our Tlayuda Topped with Mole de Pipián

Take Home Bounty

After a couple of beers at Ruse, we drove back to our B&B to shower and get ready for the show in Downtown. Although we drove our car, there's not a lot of profit in hunting for parking near the theater, so we booked a Uber to take us the ten minutes across the river where we arrived at dusk, just in time to see the lights on the fountains across the street from the entrance to the Keller Auditorium.

Fountain at Keller Auditorium

In Our Seats in the First Balcony

Despite "To Kill a Mockingbird" being pretty much de rigueur reading to exit high school successfully, I never had to read it for school, which oddly enough, was in Auburn AL, two-and-a-half hours northwest of Monroeville, home to Harper Lee. I have read it a couple of times on my own and at least twice, I have seen the 1962 movie in which Gregory Peck won the Academy Award playing Atticus Finch. So the story being pretty familiar to me, I truly wondered how it would be adapted to the stage.

Having a 6-year old Scout narrate a Broadway play seems difficult to pull off. And in this Rodney King era, having Atticus Finch be the Great White Knight seems a touch tone deaf. I thought that Aaron Sorkin did a pretty decent job of adaptation, knowing that he could please no one. In the end, the movie focused on Atticus and took a sharp veer away from the bildungsroman centered on Scout's loss of innocence. Richard Thomas did a great job of bringing humanity and emotion to the character that Peck played much more drily. I was sad to see the Boo Radley story line eviscerated, but I understand why it had to be. I enjoyed the production; it was worth the long drive to Portland.

The next morning, we left early and returned home via Beaverton to see Don and Terry, who relocated to the Valley from Seattle right after we left it to move to Bend. It was our first chance to see them in a year or more and our first chance to see their new house. The drive back to Bend down I-5 and across Santiam Pass on OR 22 was uneventful. We arrived about 1:30, just in time for me to put a second coat of paint on the ceiling and walls of the kitchen.