So, Day 3 was our “supposed” chillaxing day where we just venture our way around Downtown Portland, check out Chinatown, the Saturday Market and have some good eats!
Our day started off with us arranging everything that K had bought the day before on our bed and to take a picture of all her new purchases! Take a look for yourselves.
We then headed to the hotel lobby for breakfast again and much to our surprise and delight, this particular morning offered up English muffins and sausage patties, plus all the other basics. So we chowed down on the yummy food and A made us a waffle too this morning! Thanks A!
So our first job when reaching Downtown Portland was to find parking. That proved to be quite a task because the parking lots that were originally advertised to be open and were the cheapest, ended up being closed! WTF??? What pay parking lot closes on a Saturday in Downtown??? Crazy! When we finally found parking, we headed over to the Portland Saturday Market which is basically an outdoor arts and crafts fair which I loved.
While walking through the food fair portion of the market, we spot a stand selling bubble tea! K and I love to try bbt in all the different cities we visit, so of course we HAD to get one here in Portland too! BIG mistake! WORSE bbt EVER! I actually had to spit out the gross tapioca balls! Definitely not graceful, but I didn’t care…..I just stood in front of the garbage bin spitting all the remnants out of my mouth.
And to top of the worse bbt experience ever, K also bought some crab puff crap which was basically wonton wrappers with imitation crab and cream cheese stuffed inside. Even the sweet and sour sauce accompanying it did not help! No more food from Portland Saturday Market ever!
(Editor's note: this picture is worth a gazillion bucks! OMG. I can't stop laughing. This just shows how BAD these cream puffs were...but I continued to eat them. No stink face from me)
As our walk through Portland Saturday Market was coming to an end, all of a sudden A spots these 2 guys and starts hugging them! I was thinking, “So cool that A would run into some friends while vacationing in Portland!” Well, one of her “friends” held out his arms wanting a hug from me, and me, being the nice person that I am agreed and I gave him a hug! K refused to hug him though. Not strange I thought since it didn’t seem like a thing she would normally do, so I didn’t think anything of it. That is until K was like “ewwww…..why would you hug strangers???” I’m like “they’re A’s friends!” Then K points out the sign…..the 2 guys were holding up “FREE HUGS” signs! WTF A??? I thought they were your frickin’ friends!!!! That’s the only reason why I agreed to hug the guy! LOL! Apparently, they’re part of that whole “FREE HUGS Campaign” which I’m just learning about NOW! I had no clue what it was all about but A knew! That’s why she hugged them so readily! I had the heeby-jeebies afterwards!
Next stop, Chinatown! This was the most disappointing Chinatown ever! There was nothing authentically Chinese about this Chinatown! Just totally whitewashed Chinese restaurants. The only “authentic” Chinese thing was the red entry way with the golden lions on either side. Thumbs down Portland Chinatown!
By this time it was close to 2:30pm and we hadn’t had any lunch yet! (And no, the bbt and crab puff at the Market does not count!) So we headed over to the much anticipated Mother’s Bistro!
We’ve heard many good things from different people about this place, so we were all looking forward to some yummy food! Too bad they had just changed over from their lunch/brunch menu to the “light afternoon” menu. Damnit! Only sandwiches and soups on this afternoon menu. Oh well, we ordered a turkey sandwich, a cup of asparagus soup and an order of their fries. Despite the fact that it wasn’t what we were hoping to have at Mother’s, it was still very good nonetheless! A was slurping away at the asparagus soup which she loved! I know what we ordered doesn’t seem like much between the 3 of us, but remember, we still had our Voodoo donuts packed away which we still needed to munch at and it was already 3pm, so we didn’t want to spoil our appetite for another highly anticipated dinner later!
So after a quick meal at Mother’s we started making our way to Powell’s Bookstore. Before we headed inside and dive into the world of books, we decided to munch on our donuts! Time to see what all the fuss about Voodoo was all about! To be honest, I wasn’t all that impressed with the donuts EXCEPT for the Bacon Maple one! Even a day old, it was absolutely scrumptious! Loved it! Don’t think A enjoyed it as much since she got the most oily portion and it did a number on her stomach while in the bookstore. Oh, did I mention that there was a homeless girl sitting in front of Powell’s that was begging for food while we were chowing down right in front of her??? We are so mean…..
And then…..aaaaahhhhhhh (a la Oprah)…..Powell’s Bookstore!
OMG, you can get lost in that place! It’s a block long, with 3 (or is it 4) floors and house to over 4 million new and used books! Book heaven! I think we stayed about 3 hours there and I was only able to get through maybe 1/8 of the store! I sooooo need to go again! And the books are so cheap too! I ended up getting 10 books for 40 bucks! Woo hoo! That should last me a while until the next time I go again!
So after taking our books back to the car and relocating to a new parkade, we decided to shop a little bit more before heading to eat. We ended up just checking out some shops around Pioneer Place and also Nordstrom Rack where I snagged an awesome deal on jeans!
After walking around all day, we were so ready to sit down and enjoy a delicious dinner and Jake’s Grill did not disappoint! Food here was sooooo good! We started off with an appy of steamed mussels in a curry sauce to share and I ordered 2 oysters on a half shell for myself since A and K weren’t into raw oysters. That curry sauce was so yummy!
We used our bread to totally sop up every drop of it! For our mains, we got a pasta and a steak. Either we ordered all the right things from the menu or this place just makes awesome food! Seriously, one of the best steaks I’ve had!
(Editor's note: the waitress got the kitchen to split this meal into two dishes. So this dish would have been much "grander!" However, a split dish or not, it was really fantastic!)
And then to end off the already wonderful meal, we ordered the Dessert Trio which included smaller versions of their Berry Crisp, Crème Brulee and Chocolate Pot au Crème. My fave was definitely the crème brulee! One of the smoothest ones I’ve had and just the balance of just the right amount of crispy brulee on top. We will definitely be coming back to try some more items off their menu!
Despite the time, about 9 pm, we were totally exhausted already. We decided to head back to the hotel because we still had the task of packing everything that we had bought yesterday and try to stuff as much as we could into our suitcase for fear that my trunk and half my back seat would not be enough room for all our stuff……that just shows how much we actually bought!
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