Choose Your Own Adventure In Portland

Hip And Booming, Portland Is A Wonderland Of Adventure From The Arts To Unique Shopping To Food And Wine To The Great Outdoors

by Heather Cassell

Portland is booming and for the moment the Pacific Northwest city is attempting to hold onto its unique quirky vibe that makes it such an original and cool place to visit.

I love “The City of Roses.” It’s a fun, laidback, culturally interesting and outdoorsy city that encourages exploration from your stomach to original products made right there in Portland to the great outdoors that are easy to get to.

Locals love Portland too and are quite passionate about praising its charms as a city.

“I’ve watched Portland, go from this weird industrial town … to being this bustling metropolis of like culture and art and things happening all the time,” said Belinda Carroll, a 42-year old lesbian Portland native who is the co-founder of the Portland Queer Comedy Festival.

“I think why I love about Portland is the mixture of like the new people and the old guard that are still hanging out and you’ve got this really interesting counterculture and really interesting art scene,” she continued.

“It’s fun and there’s a lot of really good food,” Belinda added.

Emma Mcilroy, the 34-year old bisexual woman who is co-founder and CEO of Wildfang, a gender-nonconforming and feminist apparel boutique, agreed.

Emma loves Portland’s restaurant and cocktail bar scene and the wide variety of ways to work off all that good food. She’s often seen out on the course golfing, taking to the trails hiking and running or hitting the road for a day escape to the beach or Mount Hood for year-round skiing and snowboarding. She’s also in love with the scenery during the different seasons.

She feels the city has embraced her as well as Wildfang.

“Portland is such a fun city,” said Emma. “I guarantee you will have a good time.”

I did have a good time. I explored Portland’s red-hot culinary scene and worked off the calories checking out three levels of exhibits at the Oregon Historical Society, strolling through the neighborhoods and taking walking tours, and hiking through Portland’s Japanese Garden to chasing waterfalls with my friend in the Columbia Gorge.

Where To Eat And Drink

Competition for locals and visitors’ palettes has only grown since my last visit to Portland a couple years ago. The city is renowned for its culinary scene from its world-famous food cart revolution that started back in the 1980s to its robust restaurants with notable chefs going back to Portlandier chef James Beard, whom the culinary world’s Oscars hold his namesake.

The rapid changes happening in the city are having a huge impact on Portland’s dining scene. Not only are there a bevy of new restaurants, but it’s hard to get into any eatery without a reservation. Simply walking up to a restaurant can cost you an hour and a half of your time just to get seated as I learned at Perlot (formerly Southfork).

The restaurant that serves up American South dishes is located far away from downtown in the Beaumont – Wilshire neighborhood, but it was packed even in the waiting area where cocktails were being shaken and stirred for the would-be diners.

Furthermore, I learned during the Forktown food tour that the booming economy is threatening the food cart scene as building developers move in evicting the carts dishing out innovative and inexpensive eats. The threat makes food cart owners’ dreams of making it to brick and mortar restaurants ever more pertinent and food cart lovers nervous about what’s going to happen to this beloved segment of Portland’s food scene.

My dish-to-dish journey began early in the afternoon after my arrival, I was ready for lunch. I headed directly for the new Pine Street Market in downtown Portland near my hotel. I wasn’t as thrilled with my lunch choice dining on a thin crust pizza that was so hot there was no flavor, even after it cooled off a bit. Perhaps I chose poorly or call me spoiled, but the food hall selections simply didn’t inspire me in comparison to San Francisco and New York food halls. I left disappointed.

Lunch was redeemed a day later at Portland’s Japanese Garden’s Umami Café, which served traditional Japanese food rather than sushi. It was a perfect way to end a walk through the garden in the wide-open intimate dining room that overlooks the entrance to the garden.

Dinner and brunch in Portland were my favorite times of the day when it came to eating. I started my nocturnal culinary adventure with James Beard award-winning chef-driven restaurants Bistro Agnes, a charming Parisian-inspired restaurant, and Nostrana, an Italian restaurant. I enjoyed magical nights sitting at the bars of each restaurant indulging in the food that was nothing short of wonderful. Each dish served, no matter how simple from onion soup with gooey cheese floating in the rich broth to the gnocchi, was bursting with flavor and fulfilling. I washed these two dinners down with the best wines that perfectly complemented the food.

On another evening, I enjoyed prosciutto wrapped asparagus, fried cauliflower, and crab cakes, steak and more at Carina Lounge in the trendy Northwest-Nob Hill neighborhood with my friend. The Mediterranean-inspired small plates hit the spot as my friend and I enjoyed every bite. We followed up that experience by going East the following night dining at Nimblefish, a high-end sushi restaurant in the Hawthorne neighborhood. Unfortunately, while it was very good, we left still hungry. We did something neither one of us ever did before, we ducked into the neighboring burger place after dinner to satiate our growling bellies.

If breakfast and brunch is your thing, like it is mine, Screen Door is the spot in Portland. It is worth getting up early and waiting in line for the doors to open, even if normally, waiting in line for an hour to eat isn’t something you do. The food was overabundant and indulgent but sinfully delicious from its gigantic bananas foster french toast to the eggs sardou served with a bowl of cheesy cheddar grits to the glazed smoked cheddar and bacon hushpuppies. The meal energized us for a day of hiking up and down streets with her daughter’s shopping.

Perhaps the best way to experience Portland’s food culture is to take a food tour or attend Feast Portland. I enjoyed learning about high-end dining to food carts to dessert and the stories behind them on the Forktown food tour. The tour left me filled intellectually and physically while providing some exercise as our guide took us to eateries through around downtown Portland.

Feast Portland, the city’s food festival happening September 13 – 16, is another reason for the city’s happening restaurant scene and a great way to get a taste of the best of the Pacific Northwest. The festival launched in 2012 and led by lesbian wife team Carrie Welch and Jannie Huang who co-founded the festival with their friend Mike Thelin exploded onto the city’s gastronomic turf and officially put Portland on the culinary map as a foodie destination.

Portland is also well-known for its microbrewery scene, which is a boasting point for local beer lovers.

“We are number one in the world for microbreweries per capita,” Arielle Adkin, tour operations manager of Forktown food tours, told our group as we sipped Double Mountain Brewery’s Vaporizer Hop Ale during the tour that visited six different culinary establishments.

A great way to sample Portland’s brewery scene is to hop onto Brewvana’s too cool for school tour buses (yes, actual small school buses) for the city’s brewery tours.

The city is also sipping distance from the Willamette Valley, Oregon’s wine region known for its Pinot Noirs. Spirits are also hitting the scene as distilleries have been emerging within recent years.

Be Entertained And Shop Like Nowhere Else

Belinda couldn’t be prouder of her hometown as it’s a place where women and queer people can thrive.

“I think that’s different than a lot of the country,” said Belinda about the atmosphere that fosters the kind of support Emma along with other queer and women entrepreneurs and creatives, like herself, have enjoyed in Portland.

Portland is where she felt she could launch the country’s only queer comedy festival, a four-day event that attracts nearly 2,000 attendees to more than 30 events featuring 50 LGBT comedians. The festival recently wrapped up its second successful year.

“We have one of the best open LGBTQ communities in the country,” said Belinda, noting that you don’t have to be in a specifically queer space, everyone is welcome everywhere. “You can actually come to Portland and have a good time and go places and visit them and you don’t have to really worried about where you are and what you’re doing.”

“It’s a good time to be in Portland for sure,” she said. The “creative vibe” is happening. “We’re just a hotbed of that right now, which is cool.”

I left Portland a little poorer, not only because of all the great food and wine, but the city makes the feminist shopper in my heart sing.

I more than perused Wildfang, which opened five years ago as a part of the wave of gender non-conforming clothiers and boutique shops, I walked out with a bunch of feminist-themed gifts for myself and friends. Around the same time, Wildfang roared onto the scene similar shops opened in San Francisco, Oakland and across the country in Brooklyn.

Many of those clothing brands and stores have since closed. The last store standing from that wave of “gender x” designers, Wildfang, has successfully ridden the gender non-conforming and feminist waves.

The co-founders former Nike executives Emma, an Irish transplant from Northern Ireland via London, and Julia Parsley don’t shy away from their feminist and progressive political values that are fostered and supported in Portland. They use the store and its fashions to speak out from its “Wild Feminist” line to turning First Lady Melania Trump’s “I really don’t care. Do U?” jacket into a fashion movement with a line of jackets to t-shirts, touting the slogan, “I really care, don’t u?” The fashion line sold out within an hour of its release in June.

The store, located diagonally across from woman-owned Powell’s Books and across the street from MadeHere PDX in the Pearl District, also serves as a sounding off point with “get out the vote” events and other feminist and political events that keeps shoppers coming in for more than just new duds.

MadeHere PDX sports cool clothes, bags, home goods, and makeup for the ecofeminist and women of color all made by Portlanders, what locals call themselves.

Needless to say, this little corner of Portland is a feminist and queer shopping heaven.

This past spring, Wildfang started spreading the girl power love opening shops in New York’s trendy Soho neighborhood and later this year in Los Angeles.

South of Powell’s Books on Burnside Street is another cool shopping spot, Union Way, where Danner Boots and other fine leather footwear and clothing can be found.

The Pearl District has long been a magnet for creatives, artists, designers, crafters, and other creative entrepreneurs, but these trendsetters have moved beyond the downtown niche into other neighborhoods, most notably Hawthorn, Mississippi, and Nob Hill.

Tanner Goods, another great leather goods shop, can be found in the Mississippi neighborhood along with The Meadow, a specialty culinary shop filled with unique salts and other cooking ingredients. These shops and its neighbors offer items that can’t be found anywhere else but in Portland.

Nob Hill offered a little bit more trendier shopping experience with a mix of brand name stores and boutiques.

Get Outdoors

Other ways my friend and I purged ourselves of our adventurous feasts was hiking.

Portland is home to more than 152 miles of trails that are easily accessible by public transit or a short drive to the Columbia Gorge, where I enjoyed chasing waterfalls with my friend, who lives just outside of Portland.

Just off the freeway are short trails that take you away from the hectic pace that is taking hold of Portland and lead to incredible waterfalls. Many of the trails were still closed due to the wildfires along the Pacific Crest Trail, and other wildfires in the Columbia Gorge area, that hit the length of the trail from the California-Mexico border all the way up to Manning Park in British Columbia, Canada, earlier this spring.

The Pacific Crest Trail is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

For more urban hikers, Portland offers many options from the aforementioned Japanese garden to trails in Washington Park to walking tours, such as Portland Walking Tours, where I delved into a deeper understanding of the city’s rich history and Portlanders’ sense of being with our tour guide native Portlander Dianne Johnston.

Where To Sleep

New hotels are enticing visitors to Portland. I stayed at the newly opened The Porter Portland and The Duniway, another boutique hotel.

The Porter Portland was so new the finishing touches of construction were still underway during my visit earlier this year. It also boasted of a unique feature, an indoor swimming pool with an outdoor patio to sit and relax in following a swim, spa treatment or workout, something many hotels, especially in downtown Portland don’t offer.

Both The Porter, an upscale modern sophisticated hotel in Hilton’s Curio Collection, along with retro boutique The Duniway, were easily within walking distance of many restaurants and activities downtown.

Another great downtown hotel is The Hotel Vintage Portland and longtime LGBT traveler favorite, located on the other side of the Burnside Bridge, the hip Jupiter Hotel.

You will be well rested for your daily Portland adventures at any one of these hotels.

Getting Around

I flew into Portland on Alaska Airlines and out of the City of Roses on Virgin Airlines, which is now owned by Alaska Airlines.

Portland has always been very easy to get around in due to its great public transit systems the TriMet, however, for the app savvy Uber is readily available along with the city’s cabs.

I only needed a car when I ventured beyond the greater city center toward the farms and suburbs and the Columbia Gorge. For these adventures, I simply grabbed a rental car.

Book your next Portland adventure with Girls That Roam Travel. Contact Heather Cassell at Girls That Roam Travel at 415-517-7239 or at .

Originally published by the Bay Area Reporter.

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