Category: Abroad

Nals and Kells Do: Travel Abroad.

Food Truck Review: Manger á Portland

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This is a special ed of Food Truck Reviews.

We started off with Things to Do in Portland. We will continue today with a summary of our food tour.

Farm Boy Drive In

A sleepy eatery in an odd duck corner of Olympia. Here the corn dogs are crispy fresh, the official certificate of The Daughters of American Revolution has made an impression (literally & figuratively) on the wall and where a visible minority is rarely seen. Staff were nice. Corn dog was corny tasty. And, we had that feeling that a climactic horror movie scene was about to unfold.  We made sure not to overstay¹.

Lompoc Tavern

Is right around the corner from Pecularium. Large airy tavern with a terrace, and lots of nooks and crannies to squirrel away into. We had beef burger sliders (delicious) and Southwest Chicken salad (lovely spicy dry rub on grilled chicken that crisped up real good under the hot loving grill. And, this fit in quite nicely with the greens and other healthy crap. With numma nums dressing².)

Lima Peruvian Restaurant

We’ve never had Peruvian food so this was a delight. We ordered Ají de Gallina . This is a Creole4 dish consisting of shredded strips of chicken cooked in a creamy sauce. Sauce contains ají5 and milk. It is accompanied by potatoes, white rice, hard-boiled egg and olives3. To Mr. Nals and I, this dish sounded very different from anything we’ve tried. It had a rich mouthfeel, but wasn’t overwhelmed with a fatty taste. It was smooth creamy perfection with different bites of chicken, potato or egg inside. Also had some wine to give it complexity. Fair warning: this dish was not made to feast your eyes.

Our next dish Bisteck a la Chorillana is described as “Fried steak smothered with sauteed onions & tomatoes served with rice and fried potatoes.” This dish had more pungeant flavour so it was a great contrast to the chicken dish. Smoky grilled flavour, acidic, delicious.

San Francisco Mexicana Tienda
Facebook and Menu

We didn’t take pictures but in the deli section, we ordered Taquitos and Tostado. Amazing fresh ingredients, crispy, flavourful. It is so worth it to come here just to eat, nevermind their glorious market area where you can buy groceries, snacks, hot sauces and drinks.

Food Pods

…are a convenient gathering of food trucks in parts of downtown Portland. The Mr and I visited 2 of them.

Phat Blue Buddha

We got the Korean Beef & Rice. The meat was tender, flavourful. The whole dish was perfection. The chef-owner is super friendly and apparently spent some time in B.C.

Don Jalapeno Mexican Food

Mmm delicious Tacos. Tender tasty meat, crispy fresh veg and tortilla were magnificent! And reasonably priced so you can try a few different ones without breaking the bank.

 

These are just a few places that we tried in Portland, Oregon in August.

Have you tried any of these places?

Footnotes
1 A bit of artistic license. But don’t they say art imitates life?
2 In Amur’ca, the portions and salads are very different from Vancouver’s. Ask for dressing on the side unless you like globs of gloop.
3 You may have noticed that Lima’s menu does not list this dish. I remembered the name of the dish and so I went off-roading on The Google. I found a description on Adventure Life.
4 Creoles in Peru? Yessuh!
5 WTF is a Scoville unit?

Pret a porter in Portland

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Mr. Nals and I took a jaunt to Oregon in August.

I’m a planner. He’s more of a spontaneous duckling. Who says planning is all the rage¹?  So we didn’t book a hotel. We winged it.

We ended up taking the turn-off into Beaverton and found a place called Shiloh Inn. Looked chalet-ish, with a pool. But wouldn’t you know it – it was ALL booked up!¹

The front desk chicka suggested Peppertree Motel. This was casual, motel-style, low key. There was a little water feature in front & lots of guest parking.

Peppertree Hotel, Beaverton, Oregon

Peppertree Hotel, Beaverton, Oregon

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It’s All Natural!

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A few months ago, Nals told me that a coworker of hers has these amazing

lashes because she uses some new serum called EyEnvy. Nals assured me that this sweet coworker of her swears by it. So when I saw it in the store, I bought it. I was a wee bit shocked by the sticker price, but I thought Nals would never lie to me. Plus, I could try it, then review it for you all!

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PS I love you

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So as you may or may not know…but Nals and I love to travel. Unfortunately, we don’t get to do as much as we would like with work and life and all. But there are a couple of spots that have a few things we like; sun and fun. Oh and good shopping.

We already talked about our live for Sin City. But I recently got to fly out to another little sweet spot…Palm Springs. And if you have been following us on IG you’ve probably noticed I’ve posted some Palm pics already.
Here’s the thing, I have been hearing great things about PS for years. But it wasn’t until 2 years ago that I finally got to see what all the buzz was about. And let me tell you, I fell in love.

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Crashing Valentines: Harrison Hot Springs Hotel Review

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Nals & friend Missy R were invited to Harrison for a work thing at Harrison Hot Springs Resort Hotel, around Valentines. And we decided to do a hotel review.

In the midst of all the lovers trying to enjoy their mineral soaks, our party of at least 100 shows up.

(We weren’t a rowdy crowd but we misfits certainly didn’t add to the romantic feel.)

So let’s get to the hotel review!

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3 French Hens, 2 Girls and 1 Cafe

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On our way back from Seattle in January, we decided to stop off in historic Fairhaven.

This quaint little area is actually part of Bellingham, Washington. (Kind of reminds us of areas of North Van, New West and Vancouver’s West End with a bit of Steveston.)
Kells had had breakfast there previously. So she corralled us into the same joint named Skylark. I had been dying for some

Banana fanna fo fallys: Bally’s!

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Bally’s Hotel is one of Kells’s go-to for Vegas.

So we thought we’d review it just for you N&Kers. That’s how much we ♥ you!

20171013_221710

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Dog Day Afternoon

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Kells & I kicked off 2018 in Seattle.

 

We stayed at Stay Pineapple Maxwell and dined at Purple Café .

 

Click for N&K reviews:

hotel ⇔ restaurant

 

One afternoon we hopped along to Pike Place.  We had luckily timed it right to view the famous fish throwing.  We saw gorgeous fresh flowers, warm bakeries, meaty delis and sweaty^ cheeses.

We got hooked on Chukar Cherries – air dried cherries from Chukar Farms coated with delightful things such as dark chocolate and truffled milk chocolate.

We took some lovely boardwalk pix. And of course all of this walking*, talking, trying, posing and watching makes a couple of gals hungry.

So off we went in search of a spot of lunch. We felt like some Pike Place chowder but there was a HUGE lineup^^.

So we searched high and low. Finally we stumbled across James Moore Bar & Kitchen on 2nd Ave. We ordered Chicken Wings & Quesadilla (con pollo).

Chicken Wings were gorgeously crispy and tasty. Chipotle sauce was smoky and spicy**. Disappointingly, the mango sauce appeared to be pureed and (we surmised) not made in-house.

Quesadilla was cheesy and delightful with big chunks of pollo. Kells has got that gene that makes cilantro taste bunky and horrible (BOLO for our #hatecilantro #notparslay post).  So, we asked for cilantro to be taken out but… get this folks: the guac (in a specialty South American menu) is not made in-house.

P i k e   P l a c e is easy to get to.  Cobblestones and inclined sidewalks may pose problems for those with mobility issues.

J. M.  was hidden behind some scaffolding on a one-way street in DT Seattle.  We walked but parking looked scarce.  Place was large, with beautiful spacious wood seating. Drink menus were creatively written on walls near the bar.

Conclusion:

∴Pike Place is a must-see.  It is very similar to N&K’s local Granville Island.  But it’s the local’s local market and free so why not!

∴JM was standardly good. We think you should try it if the mood strikes and you’re in the area. We would likely try this place again.  However, there is such a variety of restaurants in Seattle that we’d just as likely be trying out something else.

What are your fave spots in Pike Place?

Have you tried this eatery? 

Penny for your thoughts!

Footnotes

^(sweaty in a good way)

*not that much walking

^^ oh gosh just looking at the chowder site, we see that we can order online grrr. But lucky for you that you now know this vital piece of info.

**Nals is a connoisseur of hot sauces and underestimated its power on the old GI system.  This is not in itself a negative thing as one rarely gets surprised at this age.  However it was unpleasant for an offset couple of hours.

Orange you glad we didn’t say Olives!

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(Uhh well actually…guess we just did.)

Jazzed up in our finery, we sauntered on over to Olives Restaurant in Vegas in October.

And as is the case for eye candies, we were appropriately seated at the window. The restaurant is deceptively large. But due to the low lighting, dark rich wood flooring and furniture, it was quite cozy.

Two hotsie totsies, satiated by a lovely dinner.^

You start off with a trio of in-house tepanades, which is served with assorted leavened and unleavened breads. Kells is not an Olive-holic as is I… so I got the trio to myself. Warning though: they’re salty!

We ordered the Truffled Risotto**, Olives Chicken Parmesan & Handcrafted Gnocchetti.

When we were here the previous year with our other friends, I ordered the magnificent Risotto. (I dreamed of this until I could experience it again.  And heyyy this was my lucky night.) Oh my… perfectly al dente rice coated in lavish mushroom creamery. Amazing slight tang of parm and dotted with fine slices of funghi. Kells enjoyed it as well.

Last time, Kells ordered her go-to Butternut Squash Tortellini. I had a mere taste and it was delightful yums. Amaretto wishes and brown-butter dreams.  But this evening, she branched out.

The Chicken Parm was served bone-in. Bold choice for a restaurant. (And we like that moxy.) But bone-in makes for a tender flavourful piece of meat. It was so tasty good, accompanied by roasted garden veg and taters.

The Gnocchetti was quite a lovely surprise. We figured that it’d be good. But not this fantastic! Rich, mouthy Bolognese sauce nestled inside sneaky grooves of pasta. I thought there was a hint of cinnamon. Kells surmised tarragon. Whatever the heck it was, it was molto bene. Excellent job, Olives team!

The portions are healthy. We didn’t finish. And yes, fair enough we ordered 3 entrées to split between the 2 of us… we felt so bad to say goodbye to the tasty morsels. They didn’t deserve to be let down like that. Poor lil guys patiently waited to get into our bellies… and instead got the rude awakening of the bin.  (Not by choice, lil morsels, not by choice.)

Have you eaten here? What was your experience?

Or, have we enticed you to try it out?

The End Pieces

*we were in our twinsies floral cold shoulder get-ups from Torrid. And we were sporting our fantastic strappy black heels from Nine West.

** I’d have to say that this runs a close 2nd to the Crispy Kalbi roll (CKr) at Yellowtail.

^this is where our Blog Story began.

We contacted Olives twice for collabs but they didn’t respond. Imagine. Being too busy to respond to N&K?!  As busy as Yellowtail is, they responded when we reached out.

 

Purple Nurple

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The Purple Café and Wine Bar is an eatery in the financial district in Seattle. It features seasonal northwest cuisine and wine pairings.

When you first enter the place, it looks surprisingly large with high ceilings. However due to muted lighting and dark wood furniture, it is feels intimate. Just off-centre, they have their wine/liquor larder. It looks like a huge wooden centrifuge from the industrial era*. This large pillar runs to the ceiling, with 360-degree shelving. There are stairs snaking around the side like a DNA helix.  (Kells and I wanted to go explore but there was a pesky ‘stairs not in use’ sign… and we didn’t want to make a scene… At least not that evening.)

We were wineless that night.  Kells had a Cosmo, extra tart. I had a beer**.

We ordered the Baked Brie to start. It was gift wrapped in

crispy phyllo, and accompanied by apricots, carmelized onions, walnuts, grapes and house crackers. The whole mess was delightful. Everything complemented each other perfectly. And the grapes were an amazement — halved and warmed, with salt. You may think ‘egads how odd!’ But trust us… your tastebuds will thank you.

For our mains, we couldn’t decide from Maine Lobster Mac and Cheese, seared Diver Scallops with grits (daily special) or Wild Mushroom Rigatoni. We were also eyeing the Veal and Pancetta Bolognese (I love me some parpadelle) and Pan Seared Muscovy Duck Breast. Due to availability and what was popular we went with Scallops and Bolognese.

The Diver Scallops were beautifully seared, toothy but tender and slightly sweet on the inside. Though cooked perfectly, grits were a little flat in flavour. (Grits are hard to season). The Bolognese was rich with al dente flavourful parps.

Kells was here before and enjoyed the Lobster Mac and Cheese. This is also a popular dish…Kells gives it 2 thumbs up. (But someone^ forgot her lactaid and we didn’t want to take a chance with someone’s^ gnarly digestive results if someone^ partook of the lactose-laden kryptonite.)

And we ended with Vanilla Bean Crème Brûlée. Holy caboodles!Beautifully torched top…sweet and smoky. The crème was mindblowing… flavourful, great mouthfeel, not super sickly sweet. An amazing way to end a good meal.

Staff: Our waitstaff Maddy was fabulous! She was super friendly, genuine and knew when to come by to ask questions (ie: not when we just took a big bite).

Conclusion: Purple Café is a must-try!

Have you gone to Purple Cafe?
What delights have you ordered?  

Tell us what you think below, in the Comments section!

End bitties

* did scientists have centrifuges in the industrial era? If they did, this is what my mind pictures.
**Wine is not sitting well with Kells’ system these days. This is a sad state of affairs for her. So, in blog-sisterhood, I didn’t get wine even though we were at a winebar.
^someone=Nals