On the road again: Portland, day 2

Most of today went to work, as you would expect from one of these trips. 

At lunchtime, however, I took a longish break and wandered among the vendors at the mid-week farmers' market near the hotel, cut through a lovely craft shop, and wound my way to the food trucks.  After walking the one-block-square circuit of trucks, I settled on a delicious three-cheese grilled-cheese sandwich to which I opted to have them add a fried egg and some thick-cut bacon.  Damn, it was good.

A rare lunch-time dessert was a Ruby Jewel ice cream sandwich back on the edge of the farmers' market, a new flavor--dark chocolate cookie with salty caramel ice cream--that was obviously too good to resist. 

I ate the cookie while sitting on a bench staring through the slowly rustling leaves of the huge trees at the perfect pale blue sky beyond, an image I captured with my iPhone and will share later, time and bandwidth permitting.

I could have sat there all day.

Dinner was a delicious, as always, meal at Castagna, where Executive Chef Justin Woodward beautifully merges modernist cuisine techniques with local ingredients.  If you live here or visit here, you owe it to yourself to give this place a try. 

I'd post more, but it's the middle of the night (despite what the timestamp says), and more work awaits, so I'm outta here. 

On the road again: Portland, day 4

In an afternoon break, we headed over to the Ruby Jewel scoops shop for some locally made and entirely delicious ice cream. I first encountered these folks because of their wonderful ice cream cookies, which I still strongly recommend. Their ice cream, which comes in many more flavors, is every bit as good as you'd expect. Check 'em out.

Dinner was at one of the best restaurants in Portland, Chef Gabriel Rucker's second establishment, Little Bird. I can't recommend this place highly enough. Combining Rucker's daring creations with a classic French bistro atmosphere, Little Bird is the kind of restaurant where you will always find new and amazing takes on classics, such as my duck leg and pork belly cassoulet. I got to spend a few minutes chatting with co-owner Andy Fortgang and learned a bit more about the background of the place. As I've said many times, if you live in or visit this area and are not eating at Rucker's places, you're making a mistake.

Tomorrow, I wake up early (for a Saturday), pack, and head home.

On the road again: Portland, day 4

My big daytime treat today was a stop at a grocery store to pick up and consume a delicious Ruby Jewel ice cream sandwich. At one level, I'm sad that these amazing combinations of cookies and ice creams aren't available in my area. At another, though, I'm glad, because I fear I would all too often give in to their temptation.

Dinner took us to Andina, which is the first Peruvian restaurant I've visited. I've heard many good things about it, so I was quite curious to see if the food lived up to the praise.

It did. We sampled several small plates and one entree; all were very good. The dishes mixed traditional Peruvian recipes with local ingredients and modern techniques. One striking example was a traditional pot-pie deconstructed so that the meat, egg, greens, and pastry were all separate items on the plate, with pork cheeks rather than the original "whatever was on hand" as the meat. It was lovely. I will definitely go back there, and I recommend it.

Tomorrow morning, I have to get up well before the crack of dawn to head to the airport and begin the long trek home. Here's hoping for uneventful flights!