BLUE STAR DONUTS
Who knew that Portland could hide so much good food from me for so long... I've been craving New York donuts and halal cart food, so this trip was exactly what I needed to satisfy my hunger. With seemingly endless food trucks and donuts good enough to compete with my favorite donut shop on the east coast, I could safely say that this trip was one devoted to food.
Blue Star is good enough to contend against the Donut Plant in NYC. I've missed fancy gourmet donuts, and as much as I love the local greasy 95-cent glazed from down the speedway, it's nice paying a little extra for one called 'blueberry bourbon basil'. My family grabbed a dozen and every single one tasted amazing.
CASE STUDY COFFEE
FOOD TRUCKS
You didn't really go to Portland if you didn't get something to eat from one (or ten) of their many food carts! There was so much variety and with it being so close to where we were staying, my family kept coming back to this little block of carts and then going back to the hotel to eat a bunch and watch TV. We particularly enjoyed Nong's Khao Man Gai that sold a simple chicken and rice, but they had this tart/spicy sauce that made it 10000x special.
There was Ethiopian, Korean, Filipino, Mediterranean, and even a Transylvanian cart, so if you're looking for a little bite of the world (and you're nowhere near NYC and in the area), this is the place to go.
... AND PRETTY MUCH EVERYWHERE ELSE
And of course we couldn't just eat at one place, so through the course of our trip, we ate at several other places (where I only took quick phone snaps). After our Powell's spending spree, we decided to go to Fogo de Chão, which is a Brazilian steakhouse that served perhaps the best steak that I have ever tasted in my life. Waiters would come around with all sorts of different cuts (flank, sirloin, filet minion), sometimes a little bit of chicken or lamb, and they had a beautiful market table in the center of the restaurant with cheeses, vegetables, and pasta to munch on between meats. No amount of words would be able to describe how great this experience was or how delicious the steaks were.
After the Ethiopian food truck for dinner, we grabbed frozen yogurt from TartBerry, which wasn't the greatest frozen yogurt ever, but it was pretty good and they had a ton of options for toppings.
Then at one point, my mom and I were craving coffee at 8PM, but Starbucks was closed, so I ended up going to Coco Moka Café where the baristas were super friendly and their iced lattés were as good as (or according to Raiana, better than) Starbucks. They have several other locations in New York state, one in Montana, and a couple in Egypt. I wish we had one in Seattle-- it seems like the perfect place to hang with friends, and they served sandwiches!
