A Lovely Saturday In Portland

Yesterday (Saturday), we woke up and decided to treat ourselves to a nice brunch. We found a place downtown Portland through Google that sounded good to us. It ended being perfect. The Veritable Quandary is in downtown but away from the hustle and bustle with an amazing outdoor dining space and a glass-walled dining room. It is walking distance from the waterfront where we really enjoyed a digestive walk afterwards. 

As soon as we walked in I felt that we were in the right place. Actually, I think I felt that way since seeing it from a distance.

We had zero complaints about the food, Josh cleaned his plate, and I didn’t only because I couldn’t fit it all but it was really delicious. The chocolate cherry pistachio ice cream was truly the “cherry on top” of an amazing meal. It’s one of the best ice creams I’ve had in a while, and the ginger cookie complimented it perfectly, we wiped it out.

Dinner and lunch are quite pricey here, but we were actually pleasantly surprised at out total of $54 USD (with wine). We expected it to be higher. We wouldn’t do this every week but it was worth every single penny. I do need to come back for just dessert before we go back to India because their dessert menu seemed like it was written for me including two of my favorite desserts ever: chocolate souffle and salted caramel chocolate tartlet. I wanted so badly to order the souffle but I was simply too full. I am already regretting this a little, and I hope I don’t regret it fully when for some reason we never get the chance to go back, or they remove it from the menu. (They change their menus often.) Anyway, enough of the chocolate souffle tragedy, let’s move on to our waterfront walk.

The weather was crisp, sunny, chilly, and perfect.

We headed down to the dock.

Josh and I loved this white plant. Its white contrast stood out to us; it looked like it had snowed over it and it was velvety to the touch. We nicknamed it “snowflake plant.”

Then we decided to take a happy hour break at Thirst Wine Bar & Bistro on the waterfront. We ordered a local Pacific Northwest amber ale which was lovely but with a hoppy aftertaste. Josh enjoyed it more than I did. I love amber ales, but I don’t love hoppy flavors.

Josh also ordered a happy hour creamy vegetable soup. I had a taste, it was yummy and perfect for the weather.

Then we got in the blue pickup truck which our hosts let us borrow and drove around to find the Portlandia statue.

…the second-largest copper repoussé statue in the United States, after the Statue of Liberty. The statue is based on the design of the city seal. It depicts a woman dressed in classical clothes, holding a trident in the left hand and reaching down with the right hand to greet visitors to the building (wiki).

You don’t get a picture because we couldn’t find it. It may have been better to walk to find it, but we didn’t want to deal with parking for the third time. We told Jason, our host, about our failure to locate it and he said: “I know where it is, and I have a hard time finding it.” He also said that it is a shame that this amazing statue is pretty hidden.

We got back around 4 or 5 pm. We really enjoyed our Saturday out in downtown Portland. It was a great day except for the horrible headache/migraine I got later that evening. No clue what caused it but it was the worst I’ve had in a while, and the medicine took a while to take effect, but it finally eventually did and I went to sleep with no pain.

These pictures are from another day when we enjoyed a little sunset wine out on the deck where we are staying at: