<3 alliteration

This week, week 6 of my stay in Portland Oregon, began as all the other 5 did…rather slow. Work was uneventful until midday on Monday when I was assigned to a bid (meaning I got to work on a pitch for a client to help Bent get a job). I felt important, worked hard, stayed late late, received generous meals, and gained a lot of experience working with one of the artists here at the studio. I can’t say much else about it…don’t want to get busted for anything! Though I think it’s safe to show you pictures of what I ate to help me through the 12+ hours in a row of staring at a large computer screen.

Meal 1 – Hickory smoked brisket sandwich from Clay’s Smokehouse BBQ down the street along with a helping of red potatoes in a buttermilk ranch sauce. The meat was perfect, the sauce (although not Montgomery Inn) was savory, the onions and cheese comforting, the potatoes tender and creamy…ahh yes.

Meal 2 – Mussamun Curry from MaiThai – potato, carrot, onion, peanut, Mussamun curry paste in coconut milk over steaming rice, it quickly became my new favorite dish of all time in the whole entire world (except for tikka massala).

Thank you Bent – (for the leftovers as well!)

Okay, so earlier in the week, before I knew I’d be getting so much food at work, I used my handy little coupon from Restaurant.com and dinned at India Grill up on Burnside. Where the Indian food in NY made me cry with frustration and disappointment (ok, I’m exaggerating, but still, it sucked), this quality and richness made me extremely happy and content with life as a whole. Good comfort food can do that you know? Just eat smooth, spicy, tomatoey cream with stuffed naan and your soul will be pleased.

So many leftovers….

Now for the most important part of this post – RACHAEL – who came to visit :)

Friday around 8pm I went to Union Station to wait for her at the train terminal. Randomly I noticed this water fountain which was constantly running. Apparently in Portland water is abundant enough to waste? Either way, Portland water is the tastiest and I didn’t complain about having plenty to drink from.

In Union Station I felt like I was in an old time movie with the steam rolling in, the chiming, and the flagging down of people. It was so so so good to see a familiar face! We both commented on each others’ hair and then headed out to grab dessert – oh how incredibly feminine of us. Cool Moon Creamery was a few blocks away and we chatted while spooning in ice cream. I got Yellow Brickle Road - locally made English Toffee, chocolate, almonds, & hazelnuts in light butterscotch ice cream - hehe yum.

We walked a bit after that then headed to my apartment for some sleeps.

Saturday morning called for brunch, as most mornings should. We went to Cricket Cafe, a place I’ve seen long lines winding out of and people at work praising. It lived up to it’s rumor and my dish of sausage, red peppers, spicy potatoes, onions, eggs, and hollandaise sauce was richingly filling and oh so spicily tasty. I couldn’t manage to finish, but I was a champion and ate all the sausage. On the way there we saw a weird little car with only one front wheel and while eating we saw a cute fluffy puppy trotting down the sidewalk – this led to gushing over dogs and wishing we had ours with us…aww doggies.

We waddled to the bus stop and went downtown to kill some time before our movie. It was raining, so Pioneer Place seemed like a good choice to browse around and drag our feet until 1:30. Nothing was bought except out tickets to Valentine’s Day which had an incredible number of famous people in it and met my expectations of the perfect feel good chick flick to see the day before v-day. Thank you Rachael for suggesting it! Haha, I was sort of a horrible host…I didn’t have anything too Portlandsy planned for us.

We talked over the movie a bit then started wandering around for something to do. Rachel needed her caffeine boost so I took her to Stumptown (after getting slightly lost). Stumptown, the big name local coffee roaster out here is supposed to be the best. I agree as best I can – all I know is it beats Starbucks! My usual vanilla latte was good and Rachel’s Americano, although spilled all over, was good too :p

Unfortunately, the small amount of coffee only wakened our hunger for dinner, so we wandered around more, looking for a cheap/good place to eat. We were unsuccessful until we were about to pass out and then I remembered my friend telling me about the huge slices of pizza at Rocco’s Pizza across from Powell’s Books. Cheap and quick and humongous were the slices of dough. It was a damn good mouthful and saved us from falling on our faces in hunger/exhaustion. Rachael in particular was going nutso (proof below).

More walking then we purchased bright pink hoodies at American Apparel and then we went to Cupcake Jones. This is the closet to Crumbs Cupcakes that I have ever experienced. The shop is small, but on display they have their flavors of the day cut in half with little toothpicked signs explaining what the concoction is. Most of them have cream/fudge/icing in the middle and all of them were irresistible. I went for the devil’s food cake with the minty cream center, chocolate icing, Andes mint and drizzled fudge. They plopped it in a perfectly sized plastic cup/cupcake cup for us to carry home! Rachael got some form of vanilla and chocolate combined…I wish I could have tried them all. They were…well, just godly, as most cupcakes are. Plenty of frosting just to my liking.

After the sugar and a little slap happiness…it was to the pillows.

Brunch again! Yey for Valentine’s Day and our matching hoodies that made people smile and probably wonder if we were a couple.

We went to Jam on Hawthorne (my now favorite brunch place). Rachael got a breakfast wrap that I stole a bite of and found to be lovely and I ordered one oatmeal chai blueberry pancake. My first bite produced such fondness from my tongue that I immediately knew I would have to order this again before leaving Portland. I have never had a pancake so good and so perfectly filling. It cradled into my stomach and sat there happily in sweet blue, cinnamon, chai juices.

In order to explore more of Portland, I led Rachael down Hawthorne toward some of the little trinket shops and toy stores etc. It was fun to browse around and see hand made products and knickknacks unique to Portland. Rachael found a cute doggie necklace by an artist she had seen online. In a random toy store, I saw stuffed diseases. Swine Flu…Chris…this reminded me of you :) haha.

With couples streaming down the street in happy twosomes of lovey doveness, Rachael and I decided to go to Cheesecake Factory to be fancy and have something awesome for dinner. We got on the bus with some Starbucks and soon arrived at Washington Square willing to spend money, lots of money! We both bought shoes, Rachael – some cute Pumas and myself a darling pair of denim anklet boots with a gold chain. I also bought a blinging necklace for myself from Juicy Couture. It’s adorned with what else but a cupcake charm that opens up. I’m gonna stuff some secrets in there.

Among other things purchased, we decided to put our name in at Cheesecake Factory. The wait was one and a half hours (mind you it was only 4 o’clock…) and so we wasted away the hours people watching and reading. Our food – a chopped salad, Chicken Parmesan, and the ultimate Valentine dessert to share : Red Velvet Cheesecake, was all absolutely delicious and perfect. When we left, we again had to waddle in fullness and wait for the bus. About an hour later we both felt like being sick. Two hours later, we still felt like ralphing on the sidewalk, and three hours later we were convinced it must be food poisoning. Who knows. It didn’t stop us from being slap happy at the bus stop and laughing about…I don’t even remember :p

Below is all that was left of the poor cheesecake. We murdered it, but really, I think it murdered us more.

Sleep didn’t come easily…my tummy hurt. But soon enough it was 7am and Rachael had to leave. Boo! We had so much fun talking and shopping and eating. Seeing a friend this past weekend automatically made my Monday bearable. Also, since I’m doing my usual of giving up chocolate for Lent, I made my Monday even more bearable by buying the widely talked about Ruby Jewel Ice Cream Cookie Sandwich for a mid-afternoon snack.

Cinnamon chocolate chip cookies sandwiching organic espresso ice cream. OH HOLY HELL. The best creamy, cool, cookie combination ever and it was a nice end to the sunny, 60 degree Portland day. Thanks for coming to visit Rachael :D