Our regular and most occasioned places include: - SeaSweets Poke (poke bowls) - 1505 SE 31st Ave - Whole Bowl (rice bowls - quick and inexpensive!) - multiple locations - Lardo (sandwiches) - 1212 SE Hawthorne Blvd - Reel M Inn (fried chicken & jojo's) - 2430 SE Division St - Los Gorditos (burritos) - 4937 SE Division St
Brunch is maybe the city's favorite meal and our favorite brunch places are: - Jam On Hawthorne (Julia's pick) - 2239 SE Hawthorne Blvd - Pine State Biscuits (Stephen's pick) - multiple locations - Broder Cafe (A Scandinavian brunch place Stephen's Mom really likes) - 2508 SE Clinton St - Tin Shed (If you are in northeast Portland) - 1438 NE Alberta St - Gravy (if you are in north Portland - Stephen thinks they have the best hash browns in the city) - 3957 N Mississippi Ave - The Stepping Stone Cafe (if you are watched Man vs Food and want those giant pancakes) - 2390 NW Quimby St - The Country Cat (Guy Fierri featured the Country Cat on a DDD so you know it's good!) - the PDX Airport
Portland is also known for its food carts, which are typically collected into loose pods like outdoor food courts. - Cartopia is on SE Hawthorne & 12th. Home to Bottle Rocket (a burger cart Julia loves) and Potato Champion (which specializes in poutine, but also does a thai satay peanut butter sauce with raspberry jelly topped pile of french fries and it's fantastic!) - Matt's BBQ Tacos is a must, located in the Hinterland Beer Garden on SE 50th near Division St - Tokyo Sando located in downtown southwest does amazing Japanese katsu-style sandwiches. Their black garlic add-on is incredible! - 431 SW Harvey Milk St
Couple fancy occasion spots that we love and want to highlight: - Han Oak (a Korean spot tucked away in northeast Portland, everything we've had here is incredible, from their wings to their dumplings to their jigae-style noodle soup with American cheese and hotdogs!) - 511 NE 24th Ave - Kachka (Russian/Georgian cuisine, specializing in small plates and perogis (and vodka if you are so inclined) - 960 SE 11th Ave - Magna Kusina (absolutely incredible Filipino cuisine - their oxtail stew is one of Julia's favorite meals ever!) - 2525 SE Clinton St
We'll wrap up our food recommendations with just some more highlights of places we like for various cuisines: - Ethiopian: Queen Of Sheeba, Bete-Lukas, Enat Kitchen - Thai: Farmhouse, Pad Thai Kitchen, Nong's Khao Man Gai, Khao Moo Dang - Chinese: Master Kong, Chen's Kitchen, Zien Hong - Southern/BBQ: Screen Door, Podnah's Pit, Kee's Loaded Kitchen - Japanese/Sushi: Kashiwagi, Kanji Fusion, Sushi Mazi, Sushi Ohana (conveyor belt, very tasty), Sushi Ichiban (conveyor belt but its a train! very novel) - Mexican: Angel Food & Fun, Tienda Santa Cruz, Por Que No - Indian: India Grill, Shera Indian Food, Swagat Indian Cusine
The Portland International Rose Test Garden, The Hoyt Arboretum, The Portland Japanese Garden, other areas in Washington Park! The Rose Garden is the largest one in America (maybe the world) and totally free to visit. It's in the southwest hills and on clear days offers really amazing views of the city, peak bloom season is typically June through to mid-August, but the area is still very nice year round and is close to a bunch of other nature-y gardens and trails like the Japanese Garden and the Hoyt Arboretum.
This is where we had some of our "we're engaged now party peoples!" pictures taken! It's a really nice garden in southeast Portland surrounded on like 3 quarter-sides by a golf course? Peak bloom season here is during April but the garden has lot of other year-round features including a really stunning bridge, a couple different reflection ponds, and a tiny waterfall feature.
This is a dormant volcano right in the middle of the city (we crazy for this one) but also just a really nice area to walk around / hang out in. Areas of Mount Tabor regularly feature dance parties or skateboarder racers or one of the better off-leash dog park areas in the city. Julia walks Tabor regularly - great views, great shade, great times.
Another 'free-to-mosey-around-in' park in southeast Portland. Stephen has seen an eagle here more than once and a few raccoons as well. But really it's just a cool place where folks go and do things like stage combat practice sessions or have open to the public pie baking contests!
A very peaceful, walled garden in the middle of Chinatown in northwest Portland! Julia collaborated with Lan Su twice for national poetry month. They host all kinds of events throughout the year, but even when they don't have any special programming going on, Lan Su is a still a lovely place to visit. Plus they recently re-opened their tea house with an amazing menu selection of dim sum!
Okay, this one is kind of cheat, but it is the smallest publicly owned park in the country. Located on a crossing in the middle of Naito Parkway in southwest Portland, Stephen thinks this park is extra neat and worth considering for a moment or two at least!
The downtown store is an entire city block and three whole floors of interconnected book store, with all kinds of weird and cool things to see - including a rare book room, an entire room dedicated to genre fiction, and an amazing poetry and small press collection. Powell's is also home to Guilder Cafe, where Julia hosts the first Thursday Slamlandia open mic, and which has some delightful Princess Bride theming going on!
Just three blocks west from Powell's on Burnside. Stephen did not work at this location for over a decade, but it is the last one standing in Portland and so if you are curious what much of Stephen's 2010's era work life looked like, this will get you close. Plus it's important to still have some physical media dealers existing in these lawless times (since, you know, ownership no longer means owning stuff in the digital era.)
Stephen works at this comic shop! This shop specializes in Golden & Silver age vintage books. Other comic shop recs: - Floating World (for oddball and small press stuff) - Books With Pictures (for a very large manga and trade paperback selection) - Cosmic Monkey (just an all around great comic shop)
We have played many board games and own many more games we intend to play in the future! Moreover, we both like going to places that encourage social gaming and whatnot! Other gaming spots in Portland: - Red Castle Games (SE Foster) - Mox Boarding House (SW Burnside) - Cloud City Games (Sellwood, in SE)
We love arcades! Quarterworld - and also Ground Kontrol - are both expansive barcades with tons of cabinets from across all eras and genres of video gaming, as well as a ton of pinball tables if that's more your thing! Ground Kontrol is pretty squarely in Downtown / Chinatown (history note that part of it used to be Backspace, home to the Portland Poetry Slam back in 2011 or so), while Quarterworld is the anchor of the far end of Hawthorne Blvd. in southeast (which is itself an excellent street with tons of cool shops, a Powell's of its own, and so many delicious restaurants).