Going to school two states away means long car trips to and from school every year. Its a two day trip, so I always break it up by spending a day in Portland, Oregon. It is not exactly a half way point, but it is certainly the most entertaining place to stop on the road trip home.
We started our day by visiting the vegan grocery store. You may have heard of it before. It went viral on Facebook. Its a small city block of nothing but vegan stores; a vegan bakery, a vegan tattoo shop, a vegan clothing store, and an all vegan grocery store with vegan soft serve. We went because my travel buddy and great friend, Julian, is vegan and originally wanted to get a tattoo done there. Unfortunately, the tattoo artist they liked was gone when we were there. A lot of their stuff definitely gives off ‘all none vegans are evil’ vibes, but I am an environmental studies major and loved all the ecofriendly products they had; like bamboo reusable straws. Plus, the vegan soft serve was delicious.
We then took a trip to Powell’s City of Books. Powell’s is the largest bookstore in the world, according to their website. The main location takes up an entire city block and there are lots of other smaller locations throughout Portland. I was in charge of navigating because Julian is a terrible navigator. We used public transportation the whole time to save money cause we are broke college students and we were both saving for study abroad at the time. While routing us to Powell’s I unknowingly selected the wrong location and we ended up going to a smaller Powell’s in a cute neighborhood near Reed College.
Do not let the word small fool you, it was still a rather large bookstore. What seemed like a narrow small little store front just kept expanding backwards and backwards forever. I left there with three books; No by Naomi Klein, an Amy Tan book, and a cute compilation of plays written by preschoolers in Portland. I also left with a ton of pictures of books I want to buy in the future.
With purchases in hand, we grabbed a little coffee from the cafe next to the bookstore and began to contemplate the possibility of lunch. Luckily for us, The Waffle Window was just around the corner. It is a place I had visited before on a trip to Portland to tour colleges when I was in high school. They serve the most memorable waffle I have ever tasted. The brie, basil, and bacon waffle with peach jam. It has the perfect balance of sweet and savory. Plus, you get to savor the little bites of heaven in the in such a scenic spot. The name does not lie, the restaurant really is nothing more then a window, but set up right next to it is a cute little covered patio lined with flower boxes. I am sure it is a miserable place to eat in the winter, but we got to enjoy our waffles in beautiful spring time weather.
We did many other things that day; checked out a vintage store, visited the Portland Saturday Market for a hot minute, got amazing donuts at Blue Star Donuts, and walked around town a bunch.
The day was finished with dinner at Bamboo Sushi. Our reservations were pretty late, but it was in the same neighborhood as the Blue Star Donuts location we visited. We ended up there pretty early, so we decided to just walk around. By this point its been a long day of walking around and our feet are very tired. Every store is starting to close down for the night, so there is nothing for us to do. Not yet 21, we could not just stop into a bar like everyone else, all we could do was wander the area. Eventually we found a Trader Joes and decided to look at the food there, because there was literally nothing else we could do.
Finally it was time for our reservation. I have eaten at Bamboo Sushi one time before. It is the best sushi I have ever had, and I eat a lot of sushi. It is also the first sustainable sushi restaurant to open in the United States. Over fishing is a huge problem in the world. Many people rely on the oceans for food, we cannot let fish stocks disappear. This problem, combined with ocean plastic pollution, is going to cause there to be more plastic in the ocean then fish by 2020. I love fish and sushi so it is nice to be able to eat it and know that my food has been sourced in sustainable ways.
(Scroll over images to learn what each item is)
What is great about Bamboo Sushi is that they are not afraid to take risks with their food. They use unique ingredients like pickled apple and garlic oil in their sushi rolls. It creates wonderful flavor profiles in the rolls with an amazing balance of flavors. I do not usually like the pickled ginger and do not eat it with sushi, but at Bamboo Sushi I do it after every bite so I can cleanse my pallet and enjoy the next piece as much as the first. I am usually a sashimi kinda girl, but at Bamboo Sushi the nigiri is a must. It is not just fish on rice, but also includes wonderful little toppings like the olive oil and lemon zest on the salmon nigiri Atticus and I had. None of this over powers the taste of the fish, but compliments it perfectly. It is truly an experience worth having in Portland.
The next day we got coffee in a quirky coffee shop near our hotel, that calls a doubledecker bus it’s home and specializes in Egyptian style coffee. Then we hit the road again and started heading home.
Eating My Way Around the World 