food – Page 3 – Out & About

In-Portland Vacation Meal No. 1: Firehouse Restaurant

Because we had a big and very fancy vacation in March, we opted to stay in Portland for our August vacation and go out to eat at the restaurants we’ve been wanting to try. First up: The Firehouse Restaurant.

I’d heard good things, but even with that background info, the quality of the vegetable sides blew me away. We ordered roasted carrots, fried cauliflower, and a beet salad and all were some of the best sides I’d eaten in a very long time. We ate them right up, as you can see by the empty dishes. The mushroom pizza was also delicious.

It was also a very hot day, but sitting on the patio, we had a very nice breeze.

Thanks, Fireside, for getting our vacation off to a great start.

12 Bottle Bar’s Pom Gin Fizz

This drink was fine. But mostly I was impressed with how well I did getting a very huge head of foam on it. It made it that much more fun to drink.

Also, those are berries from the Kenton Farmers Market and buying them once a week is my favorite part of summer Wednesdays.

Matt Turns 44!

Or as we call at the Orange Door “Fours!” (Tim Riggins on Friday Night Lights remains a very quotable character, all these years later)

The mothers, Matt, and I celebrated by going out to eat at The Old Spaghetti Factory and then eating Triple Chocolate Cheesecake. Which was delicious!

Bamboo Cutting Board Split

I’ve had this cutting board for a long time, but the glue holding the bamboo together gave up the ghost.

I had a preview of this earlier when a tiny bit of the edge split off.

I think I will keep both parts around, though. The bigger section can still be a cutting board, and the smaller section can be a serving plate.

I Love a Good Egg Puff Right from the Oven

This is a quiche-like thing that uses almond flour instead of a crust. But I took a picture because I love how pretty it looked coming out of the oven.

It was very good too, especially since it takes about ten minutes to throw it together.

20th (and 9 Month) Anniversary Dinner at Republica

Our 20th anniversary was really on May 1, but I tried to make reservations the week of and that wasn’t happening. So we celebrated several weeks later with a very fancy dinner at Republica that was worth the wait.

Our welcome and delicious menu.

This was our third course. As you can see, Republica is the kind of fancy restaurant where the portions are small. (This is a thing I like about fancy restaurants.) But don’t worry, by the time we got to the sixth course, we were well fed. We would eat half of the food on our plate and then switch. I learned that Matt really doesn’t like squid.

This was our fourth course and it was both beautiful and delicious.

It was a good choice for a big (and smaller) anniversary.

Chocolove Quote

The Chocolove bars are wrapped in foil and then a paper wrapping. The inside of the paper wrappings always has a quote. This one was from the toffee and almonds bar.

Impulse Buy: Couscous From My Late Teens

I haven’t had this in years, but for whatever reason, it ended up in my grocery cart the last time I shopped.

I most associate this brand and flavor of couscous with the summer I was a lifeguard. It cooked up in five minutes! (If you don’t count the water measuring and boiling time.) It was delicious.

I remember being very disappointed to learn that this wasn’t REAL couscous, it was more like very small cut-up spaghetti. But I kept eating it just the same.

Eating it now, I enjoyed the speed, but the flavor wasn’t quite what I remembered. I think quinoa has taken the place of this brand of couscous.