Entries tagged with “portland” from kotaraindustries.com, the helsinki branch

Last entry about Portland, I swear.  Yesterday (Saturday) the weather was totally perfect...the sun was out, it was about 80 degrees...it's the kind of weather I've been waiting for for the past 8 months.  I purposefully spent most of my day walking around outside, soaking up some much-needed sun. 

• I walked up and down 21st and 23rd streets, which are part of a funky little neighborhood full of independent retail shops and weird bars and cafes.  The Goodwill Store had a very high percentage of Jim Nabor albums in their vinyl section.
  
  
• Powell's Bookstore - my god.  Someone said it was the biggest bookstore ever, and shit, they were not kidding.  It reminded me a bit of Recycled Books in Denton...rooms leading to other rooms which lead to nooks which lead to secret hallways, which lead to a whole other set of rooms!  Every section was color-coded, an organizational detail which I of course appreciated.
  
  
• On that note, I should also mention that 21st and 23rd are part of the Alphabet District, where all the east/west street names are in alphabetical order: Burnside, Couch, Davis, Everett, Flanders, Glisan, Hoyt, Irving, Johnson, Kearney, Lovejoy, Marshall, Northrup, Overton, Pettygrove, Quimby.  I love the organizational aspects of that, too...but if I were a city planner I totally would have mandated that all the establishments on those streets had to start with that letter, too. 
  
  
• We went down by the riverside and watched elderly hippies juggle sticks, then went for a sky tram ride to the hospital.  (Why the destination of the sky tram is the hospital, I'll never understand.  That doesn't give me a tremendous amount of confidence in the safety of the sky tram.)
  
  
• And probably the best part of my day other than the $1.75 PBR tallboys and pinball I enjoyed at the bar later that night, was the Velveteria Velvet Painting museum.  I highly, highly recommend this to anyone ever visiting Portland.  The two people who run it (who I had read about on the website) were there, and could not have been nicer or more interesting.  The place was pretty dead, so they walked me around and told me all sorts of neat stories about all the paintings.  Of course it wouldn't have been right for me to take photos, but goodness me...they had some ridiculously amazing stuff.  The best I can do is share my list with you, and let your black velvet imagination run wild:
  
  
• Dog the Bounty Hunter
• Mr. T with actual gold beads glued to the painting for his necklaces
• Macho Man Randy Savage
• A slightly monoloid-looking Hulk Hogan
• Dolemite
• Jack Lord
  
• A overly manly ballerina who looked like a love child of Gorgeous George and Ric Flair
• The Heaven's Gate Cult leader
• A whole section of black light paintings, mostly focused on sad and/or gambling clowns
• A whole section of nudie paintings, mostly focused on Filipino boobie girls
• A whole section of Elvis paintings, mostly with him crying
  
• A whole section of bandido paintings
• And most importantly, a whole section of unicorn paintings called "Unicornucopia" which included:
• Glam rock unicorns
• Satanic unicorns
• A genie lamp with a vaporous unicorn coming out of it
  
  and the pièce de résistance...
  
  
• A unicorn with an extra long mane, which ebbs and flows into a giant wave, which then becomes the long hair of a beautiful woman.  Carl and Caren lovingly refer to this one as "Unicorn Combover" and I am happy to be able to show you a half-assed picture of it:
  
  
  

Also, I should stick in a plug for them as I'm sure my massive readership will really add a spike to their sales...but they've written a book on black velvet paintings that will be coming out soon.  Note to whoever: I would love to have this for my birthday.

And thus concludes my visit to Portland.  I will definitely be going back, as I did not get to go to Big Al's bowling alley or to try the macaroni and cheese at Savoy.  And next time, I'm going to take the long way home up the coastal 101 for some scenic beach driving with the sunroof open.  Summer, please hurry up.

Something everyone should think about is...if you are going to be executed, what would you choose as your last meal?  I would choose macaroni and cheese as my entree, and S'mores Pop Tarts as my dessert.  Macaroni and cheese has been my favorite food since I was old enough to chew.  And many people have told me that Portland has the greatest macaroni and cheeses in the whole world, particularly the versions from these three restaurants:

1. Gravy
2. Montage
3. Savoy
   

I was anxious to investigate these claims during my trip to Portland, and was dedicated to eating as much macaroni and cheese as possible.  Unfortunately, after eating nothing but macaroni and cheese on Friday...I totally overloaded and was not able to eat it again the rest of the weekend.  So I can only present my reviews for #1 and #2:

Gravy

• Portion Size: a very very deep, very hot bowl that I would approximate contained over 2 cups worth of noodles.  (I could only put a dent about 20% of the way in before I began to feel the onset of a coma.)
  
• Pasta: big textured, curved macaroni noodles, as you can see in the picture one noodle was about the size of my thumb.
  
• Cheese: some sort of hybrid...the orangey color and mild sharpness suggests there was cheddar involved, but the texture was too creamy to be only cheddar.  But not too creamy to be runny.
  
• Topping: slightly sweetened breadcrumbs held together with melted cheddar to create a protective covering that was very effective at holding in the heat of the dish.
• Optional Side: the most deliciously savory tomato soup that has ever passed mine lips; it was so, so creamy and chickeny and had the perfect ultra-pureed consistency, no nasty tomato chunks to navigate around, or weird onions to dodge.  I could have eaten it with a straw.
  
• Price: $7.75

Montage

• Portion Size: a bowl that I would approximate contained roughly 1 cup of noodles.  I was able to polish off the entire dish.
  
• Pasta: medium-sized curved textured macaroni noodles, closer to the size of my pinky or ring finger.
  
• Cheese: a smooth white, creamy cheese...perhaps maybe a hint of alfredo sauce thrown in?
• Topping: a mound of shredded parmesan or romano cheese, sprinkled with a bit of paprika for color.  The saltiness of the parmesan/romano nicely offset the dairiness of the cheese.
  
• Optional Side: n/a
• Price: $6.50

I told my boss that I would come up with some weighted formula to mathematically calculate the winning macaroni and cheese variant, but sometimes math can't explain everything.  I can state it best like this:

The macaroni and cheese at Montage was so good it made me happy to be alive...but the macaroni and cheese at Gravy was so good it made me wish I was dead.

WINNER: Gravy. 

Road trip!  I forget how car-free life in Seattle is, and it's been a long time since I drove anywhere.  Yesterday I went on a wonderful drive from Seattle to Portland  The sun was out.  There were trees.  There were many casinos to look at, including the legendary and mythical Emerald Queen Casino.  There was music.  And singing.  And I backed myself up on percussion with the tambourine!! 

I met up with some friends I know from Texas, and we spent the evening at one of the most magical places I've ever been in my life.  It's called the Kennedy School, and it's an old elementary school building from the 1920's that they have converted into...well, I guess you could kind of call it a hotel compound?  A lot of the classrooms have been converted into hotel rooms.  (We scored the music room.  There were no instruments in there, though, and I left my tambourine in the car.)  In addition to lodging, the place has:

• a tiny movie theatre
• a small concert venue
• a restaurant (although somewhat disappointingly, it is not cafeteria-style)
• a non-smoking bar called "The Honors Room"
• a smoking bar called "Detention"

We pretty much hung out there all night, there was really no reason to leave...they have everything!  I had pizza and raspberry beers.  We giggled a lot.  Then I went back to the room and slept well and happily.  I think I could live there.

Today I'm working from the Portland office, and it's awesome.  I'm like the new girl at school and everyone is being really nice and over-explaining everything to me.  The office is in an odd area of town that is a hybrid of super-industrial, a tiny bit ghetto, and hipster-ish.  I think my analyst comrade here and I are going to "work" from the brewery across the street for the afternoon.  Expect the quality of my typing to decrease as the day goes on.