PNW Trip: Day 6 - Goodbye, Portland!

Last night, L and I decided to get up early and take "The 101" along the coast up to Washington. This meant that I would see the Pacific Ocean for the first time!

Bright and early, we rose and gathered our things. While loading up the car, L discovered that an egg had been thrown at his car. (Bummer.) My car was recently vandalized (but it was much worse than an egg), so I could relate to his anger. Still, he wiped it up, we ran through a car wash, noticed some scratches from the eggshell, and got over it because it's not like it's a brand new car or anything. (My boyfriend is such a calm, rational person. So unlike me!)

Before leaving Portland completely, we gathered at the Cup & Saucer on Killingsworth for breakfast with friends. I ordered the Garden Omelet with tofu, which I had hoped would actually be in an omelet form, but alas, it was a tofu scramble. It came with fried potatoes and spelt toast. It wasn't jaw-dropping delicious, it was a pretty standard tofu scramble, but it was still good.


Breakfast was enjoyable and I was glad some friends could make it before we continued on. Thank you again to Joe and Nur for letting us take over their living room floor for 2 nights!

From Cup & Saucer, we hopped on to the 101 to Seaside/Ecola State Park. I was feeling very excited to be near the ocean! We stopped at a viewpoint in the park, then headed down to Cannon Beach (also known as, The Goonies beach).




Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

Pressing on (back on 101), we stopped in Astoria because L says there are sea lions there(!!!). We stopped at a couple docks until we could hear them from the adjacent parking lot. My excitement grew. When we approached the docks, there were several "No Trespassing" signs hanging and we thought this was as close as we could get. From there, we could hear them, but not quite see them. As an older couple (who didn't look like dock workers) were leaving, I asked them if they knew where we could go to get a better view of the sea lions. Turns out, they're just tourists, too! They insisted that the man operating a crane was really nice and wouldn't mind if we went in. We ducked underneath the chain and slowly, hesitantly walked toward the man. When he noticed us, he waved us in. Walking about halfway down the dock, we found them: the lazy, barking sea lions!





This was such a fun stop. I had a ridiculous smile stretched across my face the entire time we were there! I'm so glad a nice dock worker was there that day! As we were leaving, he had waved in a whole FAMILY to see the sea lions.

Back on the 101.



Cruising along, we noticed a sign for a lavender farm, which sounded promising, so we quickly U-turned to check it out. It wasn't quite what I had imagined: no endless, sprawling fields of sweet-smelling lavender as far as the eye can see. It was actually a woman's house, and she had a few manageable lavender gardens. Her house was nestled behind some trees and was, seriously, a wonderland. I'm afraid my pictures won't convey all the mystique of her home, but it will hopefully give you an idea.
outdoor bathroom (under construction)

view from the treehouse

chicken coop

one of the lavender patches

funny tree ornament

patio

What a beautiful, dreamy place. You really have to see it. I want to live in a place like that!

101 continues to wind through small towns. Our next stop is Olympia, Washington, where I did a quick Yelp search and we headed to Darby's Cafe.



We each started with a colorful side salad (and they had housemade, vegan Goddess dressing - yum!)

We split the Black Bean Balls appetizer.

These were wonderful! The balls had a perfectly crispy, flaky crust, holding in the warm, soft, flavorful black bean mash. It came with wonderful garlic bread (I only ate one piece, due to my wheat restrictions, and L happily devoured the rest) and their housemade ginger-BBQ sauce was the perfect amount of sweet and smoky. They should bottle that sauce and sell it!
Next came our burgers (oof). I ordered the Vegan Delight Burger, which truly was delightful! The housemade patty was made with grilled veggies, pecans, tofu, breadcrumbs, and an awesome blend of spices.

It was wonderful! This burger has me no longer writing off all veggie burgers as created equal. The Vegan Delight Burger makes me want to give more veggie burgers a chance! Viva la Veggie Burger!
We were totally stuffed after this fantastic meal, as you can imagine. I wanted to wander around Olympia a bit because it looks like a really cool town (made me think of Lawrence, Kansas, in a way), but we didn't have time. We had to get to L's sister's house, which is two hours north of Seattle, so we still had quite a bit of driving to do.

PNW Trip: Day 5, Part 2 - Good Evening, Portland!

After our Voo Doo Doughnut overload, walking the sugar off at the International Rose Test Garden sounded like a good idea.


Wikipedia says: New rose cultivars are continually sent to the garden from many parts of the world and are tested for color, fragrance, disease resistance and other attributes.
It's always good to stop and smell the roses.

(this grey-ish-lilac color is probably my favorite)






Next stop, the vegan strip mall! I remember reading about this years ago and thinking how amazing it was that such a place exists. The vegan strip mall in Portland is made up of Sweetpea Bakery, Herbivore, Food Fight!, and Scapegoat Tattoo.

With my sweet tooth still more than satisfied from Voo Doo, I didn't pick up anything from Sweetpea, but I did take a look inside this adorably cozy bakery. I glanced around a bit through Herbivore, but it was Food Fight! where I had the most fun (and had to show the most restraint, especially when I saw the display of Go Max Go candy bars).

(barf)

Look at all of those vegan cheeses!

I'm not a fan of mock meats, but I've heard good things about the new Tofurky pizzas. Has anyone tried them? Thoughts?

Really strange mock meats...

Ha!

True fact: Veganism is SEXY.

Shortly after romping around Food Fight!, we met up with some friends at Portobello, a vegan restaurant that was recommended to me by several people.

I didn't realize how tiny the restaurant is, and we had an "at least 45 minutes" wait ahead of us. We hung out outside, on an awkward bench, chatting and debating. We perused the menu, and since it wasn't jiving well with everyone, I felt like a Portland Food Cart Experience was in order. Portland is known for their food carts, and I'd heard about how vegan-friendly they all were, so we relocated.

Oh, so many options at our hub of choice on Hawthorne Street. Mexican? Vietnamese? What's that, Potato Champion? You have vegan poutine?! SOLD!

I've never had poutine before in my life. All I knew was that it's a Canadian delicacy of fries smothered in gravy and cheese curds. I do like gravy...

Holy no-cow, this is GOOD! It's super-super-salty, but it's awesome! The gravy is heaven, and the mozzarella-style "curds" were a nice addition.
I also couldn't help but try the PB&J fries.

WOW. I never would have thought of this combo: hot, salty French fries smothered in peanut satay sauce, with a drizzle of raspberry-chipotle sauce. AMAZING. The sweetness of the raspberry-chipotle really cuts through the saltiness of everything else, and it's just a party-in-your-mouth experience. I will be trying to recreate BOTH of these fries at home in the near future. I'm amazed my fingers didn't puff up to triple their size from all this salt, but it would have been worth it, regardless! No, this food was not healthy, but by golly, it was good! Potato Champion, you're my hero.

And let me say, food cart hubs have a great atmosphere. The several carts all form a kind of circle, with picnic tables in the center. White holiday string lights are criss-crossed overhead. It's like a romantic trailer park, or a clean "food court" of a carnival with better eats. They attract a wide variety of people: families, hippies, Average Joes, single people, and couples. I had a great time sitting outside at our table, chatting and devouring potato goodness, with fresh, cool air.

I feel that I had a much better experience at the food cart hub than at Portobello, hands down.

We concluded our evening with more strolling around the neighborhood, then stopping for a drink at the Bagdad Back Stage.

Portland, I'm going to miss you.

PNW Trip: Day 5 - Good morning, Portland!

We slept late today (9:45), probably the latest we'd slept since our trip began. We started our day on the town by having lunch at Papa G's Vegan Organics, "the most organic restaurant in Portland, Oregon." It's actually run by my friend Marcy's cousin, but unfortunately, Marcy wasn't available to dine with us, and her cousin wasn't working while we were in there.

I was really impressed with the restaurant: cozy atmosphere, lots of variety on the menu, a phenomenal salad bar (I wanted to bring the whole bar home with me), and lots of reducing, reusing, and recycling.


I ordered the veggie curry with the coconut greens and a hibiscus tea (wherever there is hibiscus tea, I have to get a glass!).

The greens were nice and tender, the curry was thick and creamy, and their tofu is awesome! They prepare it (season, marinate) in-house.

Oh, and that hibiscus tea. Perfect amount of sweet, perfect amount of cinnamon, can I take home a barrel of it?

Boyfriend ordered the nachos, which were piled high & really darn good!

Papa G's is a great place. If I lived in Portland, I'd be a regular here.

From Papa G's, we stopped at Limbo, an ultimate spice and herb shop. (The hibiscus tea inspired this stop.)


They have every herb and spice you can think of, all arranged in giant glass jars, alphabetically.




(Snapped a pic of the giant jar o' berebere for Amber over at Almost Vegan)

Our next stop was Powell Books, the most amazing (and the largest independent) bookstore I have ever visited. Seriously, this bookstore (plus all the great food everywhere) makes me want to consider moving to Portland. It's so easy to get lost in this bookstore, swallowed up by the endless rows of books and different hallways and sections. If I lived in Portland, I would spend many hours and many days inside this bookstore. (Sorry -- no pictures of this place.)

But I do have pictures from Voo Doo Doughnut! I understand it is a downright sin to visit Portland without stopping at Voo Doo Doughnut. I was surprised that there was a line out the door when we stopped there on a weekday afternoon, but the line moved swiftly.




What to choose, what to choose...

Well, I HAD to get the actual Voo Doo Doughnut.

Loved the filling!

And then I got this ridiculous peanut butter Oreo massive mess of a donut.

Unfortunately, the Oreo chunks were soft, like they'd been sitting out too long. If they were crunchy, it would have made for a much better donut experience. The awesome peanut butter drizzle made up for it, though.

And this is where I've decided to make this a 2-part entry. More to come, folks!

In the meantime, don't forget to enter into the $35 CSN gift card giveaway! Enter and spread the word.