After much deliberation, we decided not to fly anywhere. Instead, we decided to spend our 5th anniversary weekend in one of our favorite cities, Portland, Oregon. Year | Chapter 5 of our lives together. Each year gets better and better. Thank you for 5 wonderful years, beautiful, and looking forward to many many many more!
We drove down on Thursday afternoon. When we got to Tacoma, I realized that I forgot my wallet in my suit jacket, DOH! Well, rather than turning around, we decided to obey the speed limit and enjoy a leisurely drive down. We stopped for lunch at Burgerville in Centralia. While Burgerville is no In-N-Out, it is a decent chain burger place to stop and grab a quick lunch. Their onion rings are a seasonal item and this being onion season – thick cut Walla Walla sweet onions – I got the large (5 piece) order. They were very good.
After checking in to what has got to be the most ghetto four diamond hotel – The Governor (our first & only stay here) – we decided to take advantage of tax free shopping, always fun. After walking around for a bit in the Pearl District, we settled into the Everett Street Bistro for dinner. I had the hanger steak salad and Sunny went with the sea scallops. Both dishes were good. We also ordered an order of pomme frites (sorry no pictures – still not in the habit of carrying around the camera) very crisp fries. Definitely a place we would go back to in the future.
Friday morning took us to an unexplored Portland neighborhood | street, Mississippi Avenue. There we had breakfast at Gravy (3957 N. Mississippi Avenue). We got there early enough so that we didn’t have to wait for a table. The food was very good and the portions were ginormous…I had leftovers. Sunny ordered the honey yogurt parfait with pistachios (they were out of pistachios, so they subbed in almonds – still good, but you may want to ask for half of the amount of honey they usually use, a bit too sweet). Along with the yogurt, she got a single biscuit with veggie gravy. Home made biscuit and gravy were very good. I had the house smoked salmon hash. It came with a large order of hash browns. Not only was it very good, but as mentioned the portion was ginormous (again no pics)!
After more shopping, a quick run, and a spa pedicure for Sunny, we decided to have dinner at a local southern/cajun restaurant that was recommended by Sunny’s pedicure-ist ?!?!? Anyway, the place was called Montage – www.montageportland.com. It turned out to be a pretty good recommendation. We started with an order of the hush puppies. Slight spice kick and veggie, pretty darn good. I went with the blackened catfish and Sunny, scallop jambalaya. Hush puppies – good; jambalaya – good; catfish – good; cornbread – good. Needless to say both Gravy & Montage are highly recommended.

Montage - it is literally under the Morrison Street Bridge

hush puppies - veggie

jambalaya w. scallops & side of cornbread

blackened catfish - my cornbread is on another plate!
Our new favorite pizza parlor, too bad it is 180 miles away! Hot Lips uses only local ingredients that are in season (probably makes an exception with pineapple, right?) - www.hotlipspizza.com - Hot Lips makes its own soda. Two of the slices that we ordered up were ham & pear with local cheese and the Sicilian (all meat pizza).

Hot Lips Pizza in the chic Pearl District
The Pearl District location is right next door to the Patagonia store. We had another great trip. It was nice going to some great new places. We can’t wait for an excuse to get back to Portland. Portland Marathon? Another run at the Run Like Hell Half Marathon??

In season local ingredients...yum!

pesto, tomatoes, corn, cilantro, and other fresh local goodness...

Multnomah Falls





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