Portland

We visited Portland, Oregon from Friday to Sunday in June.

Friday

On Friday we flew from Burbank to Portland with a layover in San Jose with a layover in San Jose. During the two-hour stop, we visited The Club Lounge near gate 15. The food was terrible, with rubbery eggs and flavorless fruit. This was worse than the Club Lounge in New Orleans. The bagels were okay.  But hey.. free breakfast.

We landed at 2pm and took the Red Line to downtown, checking into the Hyatt Centric Hotel, three blocks from the tram station. The train was inexplicably stopped at the Gateway/NE 99th Ave station for 20 minutes, but we still reached downtown in an hour. We went for lunch.. and I slowly realized that we completely skipped lunch! We tried HK Bistro to have some beef noodle soup comfort food. It was pretty terrible despite having a 4.5 score on Google Maps reviews. The beef noodle soup and wonton noodle soup had very few noodles, and the chashu pork was lukewarm. A side of steamed broccoli was plain and it barely felt like a dish – it was just thrown into the dish as an add-on. We walked to PIne Street Market, which was one of the spots recommended by reviews, but the place didn’t look very promising. 

After a nap, we had dinner at an Italian restaurant called Grassa around the corner that Chistine found on Yelp. It was amazing!  The short rib mac and cheese, with handmade shell-shaped pasta with a sweet, braised beef sauce. I wasn’t expecting much, but this was not your McDonalds Mac & Cheese – there wasn’t much cheese, it was just great pasta. The sweet sauce somehow blended well with the macaroni, I felt. Then we walked to  Cosmic Bliss for icecream. 

We winded down at the hotel on our phones as has become usual in our travels. I played this medieval strategy game called Plebby Quest.

Saturday

Saturday started a bit late. Our original plan to eat at Oli Cafe was thwarted by a delayed bus. Instead, we found a brunch spot by the bus stop called J&M Cafe, which was great and served fluffy, tender biscuits. On our way, we saw people gathering for No Kings Day protest at the Waterfront Park.

After a nap back at the hotel, we returned to the Waterfront Park area to visit the Portland Saturday Market. The protest was still ongoing, with many people dispersing as we arrived.

Our explorations continued with a walk through Chinatown, which appeared deserted with many businesses boarded up. We took a break at an anime-themed coffee shop before visiting the Lan Su Chinese Garden, which was a very pretty and peaceful oasis in the city. We also made a brief stop at the famous Powell’s bookstore.

In the evening, one of us joined a virtual birthday party via Zoom from the hotel room. For dinner, we went to a Thai restaurant called Khao San. The massaman curry with braised ribs was noted as being very sweet. The night concluded with more video games.

Sunday

On our final day, we had breakfast at Cheryl’s on 12th, enjoying French toast and biscuits and gravy. We then attended a service at the First Christian Church of Portland, conveniently located across the street from our hotel. From our hotel room, we could see the church, and one of us had noted what looked like a “little monster” in one of the stained glass windows. The service was described as traditional, with a sermon about “holy disruptors.” The congregation was noted to be predominantly older and white.

Our plan for the rest of the day included a late 2 p.m. checkout from the hotel, followed by an early dinner at the airport lounge. We were scheduled to fly on Alaska Airlines back to Burbank, picking up our car from VSP parking to conclude our trip.