i heart portland

so i just got back from another trip to portland...4th one...in fact, it's the most visited city that i've never lived in, which is rare since i usually like going to see new places. granted, each time i go, it's for a different reason where i see different people and different places. this time around, i went with jon so he could take a look at wscc's campus. this visit was also more of a exploration of portland and (since i'm with jon) an eating marathon. i hadn't really trolled around the different portland neighborhoods yet, so it was interesting to see them all. my conclusion (besides the obvious fact that i heart portland and i'll be moving up here soon)...portland has some of the most creative and interesting cocktails in its bars/restaurants/lounges. the best was from the teardrop lounge where i had a cocktail called "the freedonia", which is made up of foie gras infused armagnac, costa rican coffee, some other liqueur that i can't remember, and pistachio gastrique. strange, but so smooth. of late, i've been getting back into cocktails and even starting to like gin...maybe this past harvest kind of put the kibosh on beer and wine for me temporarily.

oh and did i mention the eating? we had a lot of good recommendations from a friend of jon's and we tried many of them and they were all quite tasty. our favorite restaurant was "pok pok", a thai restaurant, that we went to twice...couldn't get enough the first time around! you can see the bar in the background below...i didn't take many photos...it was basically grey and cold in portland...but please enjoy the one below of mt. shasta. you can also see my rubber duck collection in the corner. tom stransky gave me the red one randomly one day and just the other day, someone left the white one on my car windshield in san francisco...