Portlandia

Portland - "a great place to visit!"; "Oregon's largest city"; "RIP CITY"; "Portland has awesome food".

We passed by this cool wall during our hunt for food and (being the tourists that we were) ensued to take loads of pictures of it and in front of it.

Over the years, I've heard so many good things about the city, but never had the chance to visit it ... until two weeks ago! Yes, I know this post is long overdue. Portland is about a six hour drive from Vancouver. A few friends and I decided to plan a road trip down to Portland to watch the NBA playoff game (LA Clippers vs. Portland Trail Blazers) at the Moda Center. Aside from being a little intimidated by the prospect of being crammed in a car for six hours with four other guys, I was totally down.

Initially, we had bought tickets to see Game 4 of Round 1 because we had anticipated that it would fall either on the Saturday or Sunday. To our dismay, game four ended up being scheduled for Monday, April 25th. Long story short, we sold our Game 4 tickets and bought tickets to see Game 3 (on Saturday, April 23rd).

Mike graciously offered to drive.

Our first stop on the trip was at a McDonald's in Bellingham. Now I know this is not the most exciting event to document, but I thought it was noteworthy to mention that: 1) they sell mozzarella sticks (which actually tasted pretty decent); and 2) their prices are so cheap! The prices at Mickey Dees in the States shock me every time.

Fortunately for my body, the McValue menu does not exist in Canada.

... skip forward several hours and a number of mini naps later ... we arrived in Portland!!! 

We opted to stay at the Quality Inn that was a six minute walk away from the Moda Center. It was nothing fancy, but it served its purpose. Immediately after we checked in and dropped off our stuff, we decided to go on a hunt for food.

The area that we were staying in was pretty deserted and not a lot of places were open. Since the Moda Center was so close by, we wandered in that direction and ended up at a restaurant/bar right next to it called Dr. Jack's. As we were there, we noticed the bar filling up more and more with Blazers fans (and some Clippers fans). You could almost feel a buzz of excitement in the air. 

You can read my review on Dr. Jack's on Yelp :)

To celebrate the playoffs, they had a makeshift stage set up outside of the stadium with live performances. They also added a large "RIP CITY" sign in the open area in front of the stadium, along with columns that emitted flames (so cool!). Blazers fans have earned the reputation of being very loyal and incredibly enthusiastic. I was unbelievably excited to experience it for myself.

We went back to our hotel for some quick "pre-gaming" (ha!) before returning to the stadium.

Side note: Unlike other states, Oregon only allows liquor to be sold in state-run liquor stores. We discovered this first-hand after a disappointing visit to Walgreens.  


The atmosphere inside the stadium was e-lec-tric. They definitely didn't skimp on the freebies. Every one was given a free t-shirt, a hat, noisemakers, and a red lightsaber-ish rod that glowed red when you turned it on. I clearly remember the moment when we first sat down -  I looked around and was in admiration of the sea of white-shirted fans. We sat down not too long before the game was scheduled to start. They turned off the lights in the stadium for the player intros and asked everyone to turn on their "lightsabers". The entire stadium glowed red and it was really an amazing sight.

LIGHTS ON.

LIGHTS PARTLY OFF.

LIGHTS OFF!!!

We had a fantastic time at the game! It was easily the best basketball game I've ever been to. The Blazers played well (and won!), it was a close game the entire way through, the atmosphere was insane, and the fans did not disappoint. I even gained a new found respect for Mason Plumlee (believe it or not), who finished with 21 rebounds that night. The win was just the cherry on top. The Blazers fans were continuing to chant, "LET'S GO BLAZERS" all the way out of the stadium and even on the street. The original plan was to go downtown later that night. Since we were famished, we decided to make a late night food stop first at Red Robbins ... which actually ended up killing our momentum. We were all so drained from the game that the food actually put us over the edge (and eventually to bed).

We woke up bright and early the next day, ready to explore more of Portland. Harveer suggested that we try out this biscuit place (Pine State Biscuits) that had been recommended to us by a friend. It was only a 10 minute walk from our hotel. 

You can read more about our full meal experience at Pine State on my food blog :) 

If you are travelling to Portland, I would highly recommend that you try their biscuits at one of their four locations.

We didn't have anything special planned for Sunday. After breakfast, we headed across the bridge to Portland's downtown core. Sameer and Mike waited in line at Voodoo Doughnuts (I hate that spelling of "donuts"), while Deli, Harveer and I did some exploring.

We stumbled upon Portland's Saturday Market that's located in the city's historic Old Town / Chinatown neighbourhood. The Market was established in 1974 and and runs every Saturday and Sunday from the beginning of March through Christmas Eve. The open-air marketplace consists of a number of booths that are constantly changing. I learned that they currently have a membership of over 350 artisans and vendors! I loved the atmosphere of the marketplace - there were live musicians, fresh produce, hot food, and cute retail stands.

My favourite booth (unfortunately, not pictured) was one that sold soap in the shape of cupcakes and gourmet chocolate. On one end of the Market, a street musician was playing saxophone renditions of popular top 40 songs. I noticed that all the locals walking past him would casually bob to the beat and give him a smile; some even stopped and danced for a bit. After about half an hour, we headed back to Voodoo Doughnuts to check on the status of the line. Lucky for me, Mike and Sameer were just about to enter the store as we got back. I managed to slip into the line inconspicuously. 

I should've captured the line up outside that wrapped around the corner and down the street.

The inside of the store was very eclectic and colourful. I actually found the image of the man on the boxes to be quite terrifying. They had a sign up that said due to popular demand, each customer was limited to only one Raspberry Beret donut. So, being the follower that I am, I knew I needed to have a Raspberry Beret donut. Mike ordered a Cock-N-Balls donut to bring back to his co-workers (yes, you read that correctly) and two Voodoo Dozens for us to share. The Voodoo Dozen is a dozen donuts that they randomly choose for you.

Self-explanatory.

Two Voodoo Dozens and my purple Raspberry Beret.

I later discovered that the Raspberry Beret donut was created in commemoration of Prince and that part of the proceeds would go towards a "Prince-inspired charity".

I'm sorry if this offends any Voodoo fans ... but, my verdict is that the donuts are overrated. They taste fairly similar to Tim Hortons donuts. I do have to give them two thumbs up for creative design.

After having satisfied our donut craving, we hopped back into the car to continue our food adventures. Our next stop was SW Alder and SW 10th, where a collection of food trucks were parked all around the block. I think we probably looped around twice, before any of us ordered anything. Sameer and I decided to go with some Thai food at Sawasdee Thai and Egyption food at Gyro House. We couldn't find anywhere close by to sit down, so we just hovered over the front counter of a nearby truck that was closed and wolfed it all down.

You can read my review of Sawasdee Thai and Gyro House on Yelp :) 

The drive back to Vancouver seemed much shorter! That always seems to happen on trips when you're heading back home. On the ride back, Harveer noted that he's had Mexican food every time he's been to the States ... except this time. In attempts to not break his streak, we looked avidly for a good Mexican spot to try. After passing Seattle, we spotted a sign along the highway that pointed to a Mexican restaurant called Amigo (in Stanwood, WA). No brainer as to what we did next. The restaurant actually turned out to be much better than we expected. The place was family-owned and was connected to a miniature plaza that also housed a very vintage-looking movie theatre. My favourite part were the murals on the walls inside the plaza.

The indoor "patio" area where we were seated.

Yo can read my review on Amigo on Yelp :)

Even before we got back to Vancouver, we were discussing plans for our next trip to Portland. We all had a blast. Portland is truly a city of good vibes, great people, and awesome food. As expected, there was no shortage of plaid shirts and beanie hats either. Fortunately for us, Portland is not that far of a car ride away. Hopefully, we'll be able to make another trip this summer!