Useful Information About Portland & My Recommendations

Columbia River Gorge

For those of you visiting the area next week, I thought it might be helpful to provide some information about Portland. Feel free to send me an email if you have any questions.

Send me an email

Public Transportation
The Portland TriMet bus and rail system is good, but unfortunately there will be some disruptions to its regular operation due to construction starting August 4. There is also a separate rail system called Portland Streetcar, which is especially useful in the downtown area and provides an alternative transit option to TriMet. Normally, traveling from the airport to downtown is easy by TriMet rail (called MAX), but extra research will be needed to find your way during this construction. Here is more information.

A Rose City rose

Portland TriMet Rail System Map

August 4 - 17 TriMet Temporary Map

Portland Streetcar Map

Lyft and Uber are plentiful and convenient. At PDX (Portland Airport), there is a ride share pick-up area after you exit the baggage claim on the lower level. It is on the island across the street and is clearly marked.

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Parking
Street parking uses a system where you pay for the desired amount of time at a pay station, usually somewhere on the block where you parked. The machine takes coins or credit card and prints a ticket which you display on the window facing the sidewalk. The good part is that you can move your car to another spot and use any leftover time on the ticket there. There is also a parking app, which I haven’t used. There are various parking zones with different rates, and it’s also important to know that there are parking spots for 2, 3, 4, or 5 hour time limits, which are shown in big numbers on each block. You can find this information on these interactive maps:

City of Portland Parking Zones

Parking Meter Rates and Hours

There are also a few parking garages around Portland State University (PSU). Below is a map where I circled the two buildings where all activities will take place along with the two closest parking garages. There are a lot of one-way streets in the downtown area so it’s good to make note of this.

PSU Buildings and Parking Garage Map

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Things from my garden, but these and more are found at the farmer’s market

Farmer’s Market
There is a fantastic farmer’s market right next to PSU at the Park Blocks on Saturdays 8:30am - 2:00pm. It’s huge and there are lots of samples, coffee, prepared food booths, live music, and more. I highly recommend getting up early and checking it out before it gets too crowded. This also means that parking and traffic will be very busy all around PSU that day so it would be a good idea to plan ahead.

Portland Farmer’s Market Website

Powell’s Books
Powell’s is a legendary bookstore for good reason. Don’t miss going there. There’s a coffee shop inside, plus lots of quirky non-book merchandise that would be perfect gifts for yourself or someone at home. If you are like me, you won’t be able to leave the store empty handed so it might be wise to plan your luggage situation with this in mind. There are a few locations but the downtown one is the place you want to be. It’s also a one-minute walk from Deschutes Brewery.

Powell’s City of Books

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The famous and delicious Deschutes beer

Great Beer
Portland is called Beervana, which I think is quite appropriate. There is a dizzying number of breweries and great beer bars here. As difficult as it was, I narrowed down my list of favorites to just 10 places. There are many, many more.

Belmont Station
Deschutes Brewery
Montavilla Brew Works
Cascade Barrel House
Occidental Brewing
Breakside Brewery
Von Ebert Brewery
Wayfinder Beer
Hopworks Urban Brewery
Saraveza

Montavilla Brew Works flight

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Fish and Chips at Portland Fish Market

Great Food
There is also a lot of good food in Portland, and the town is well known for the many food cart pods scattered around. This website will help you plan a pod pilgrimage.

http://www.foodcartsportland.com/maps/

Here is a list of some of my favorite food places:

Multnomah Falls

Pine State Biscuits
Ken’s Artisan Pizza
Ken’s Artisan Bakery
Trifecta Tavern
Cheese Bar
St. Honore Boulangerie
Kale
Lardo
Bunk Sandwiches
Ruby Jewel Ice Cream
Stumptown Coffee
Water Avenue Coffee
Barista
Ota Tofu
Olympia Provisions
Kayo Ramen
Portland Fish Market Fish & Chips

For more food info, the main Oregon newspaper made their own lists of 40 top restaurants and 40 top inexpensive restaurants:

Oregonian 40 Best Restaurants

Oregonian 40 Best Inexpensive Restaurants

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Other Activities
Multnomah Falls - a 30 minute drive into the Columbia River Gorge
Portland International Rose Test Garden is beautiful and free (Portland is also called Rose City)
Portland Japanese Garden
Shopping: Mississippi Avenue (I recommend The Meadow for salt and chocolate)
Shopping: NW 23rd Avenue (there is also a second location of The Meadow here)
Washington Park - great escape into the woods next to downtown
Belmont Goats - local celebrities
Oregon Coast - Cannon Beach is beautiful and worth the drive from Portland
Uwajimaya - big Japanese grocery store in Beaverton
Giraffe - little Japanese deli with bento, onigiri, sandwiches
Wineries - Oregon pinot noir is well known, but there are a lot of other great wines made here
Distillery Row - you can walk and hit several craft distilleries
PDX - the airport here is always rated at the top of national rankings, with good food, beer, coffee, gifts, movie theater, etc.

Cannon Beach

Japan trip Part 3 - food and scenery

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This third and final Japan trip recap is about the food and scenery from my recent visit. Eating delicious things is always a major part of my trips there and this time was no exception. The first stop was the famous Omoide Yokocho area in Shinjuku where old, narrow alleys are filled with the smell of yakitori stands grilling meat and vegetables over hot coals.

Here is a fancy sashimi platter at a Kawagoe izakaya that specializes in seafood. A friend mentioned that the beer must be watered down in places like these because they go down too easily.

A friend gave me this Niigata made Echigo IPA to try and it was very good. This is one of the most striking beer cans I've ever seen.

Kawagoe has one of Japan's earliest pioneering craft breweries called Coedo. Adjacent to their cafe-like taproom is a good sushi restaurant where you can order their beer from next door. The session IPA was a great match with the kaisen donburi. Because Kawagoe is known for it sweet potates, Coedo also makes a sweet potato ale that has a beautiful red color and medium-low fruity aroma. The potato flavor is very subtle and I'm not sure I could pick it out in a blind test.

In Nagatoro, you can take the ride in traditional riverboats through the peaceful waters surrounded by spectacular scenery. I didn't go on this trip but the time I did many years ago is still a vivid memory.

In the part 2 entry, I described the local kabuki presentation in Chichibu. In addition to the great theater and music, the food was some of the best on my entire trip. This little plate of soba looks a very simple, but it was made right there with fresh local sobako (buckwheat flour) and the flavor was magnificent. This tray also looks fairly ordinary, but the konnyaku and miso sauce were handmade by a man running a food booth who was happy to answer all of my questions about his process and ingredients. It was unlike any konnyaku I've had – far more flavor than the usual ones. The karaage was also incredibly delicious and paired perfectly with the local sake, which fully expressed Chichibu's pristine water.

Nikko is a popular destination, and I passed through just as the fall colors were ending. The sulfur smell of the natural hot springs was pleasant in the cool, quiet air. Nearby was a roadside stop with food windows, and an unusual fish name caught my eye: おしょろこま (oshorokoma). The man grilling them on the fire explained that it was a kind of iwana (char) from Hokkaido and the name came from the Ainu language. The flavor was very good – mild, fresh, and slightly sweet.

I received this Nagano-made beer from someone who had just visited that area. It was a well made kolsch-style ale, but the unusual feature was the explanation that water from Suwa Onsen (hot spring) was used to brew it. The interesting can illustration shows local attractions such as Suwa Lake, the local shrine and castle, and even the famous Onbashira Kiotoshi festival where people get on top of enormous logs and slide down a steep hill.

Another activity I mentioned in part 2 was the kabuki performance at the national theater in Tokyo. During one of the intermissions, I enjoyed a traditional makunouchi bento. This feast for the eyes was like a continuation of the beautiful staging and costumes of the play, and it was also delicious.

At the Bettara Ichi Festival in Tokyo's Nihonbashi, the featured food is bettara zuke, which is whole daikon pickled in koji. Between the Wakayama Shachu performances (described in Part 1), I walked around the dozens of vendors and tried almost all of the pickles available with the intention of buying some to take home. However, they seemed to all contain sugar and were too sweet for my taste. Perhaps I wanted to cut the lingering sweetness from all the pickle samples because I ended up at a shichimi booth and picked up a custom mixed bag. There were all kinds of festival-style foods available: dango, colorful chocolate covered bananas, and many others.

Not surprisingly, I couldn't get enough shin soba (fresh-flour soba). This double decker with tempura in Nagatoro was exquisite.

Yet another Japanese craft beer that was given to me which I had never heard of, tasted good, and came in an interesting can design.

Kamameshi is one of those nostalgic dishes for me, and unfortunately restaurants specializing in them seem to be disappearing. Happily there was a small restaurant in Asakusa away from the busy touristy area specializing in this cuisine. This mushroom kamameshi was delicious and satisfying. I also had my first-ever taste of hirezake there, which is charred fugu fin dropped in warm sake. It's not something I would look to order again.

More shin soba in Katashina with the people who make the Swiss horns from bent cedar that I described in Part 2. Local beer was ordinary but the soba was incredible.

This cat was napping under an ice cream window. It drew me in and I considered getting a cone until the person working there gave a disinterested look that was rather uninviting. Too bad, because the combination of a cute kitty and a friendly server would have been impossible to resist.

Growing hops at home

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Centennial hops ready to harvest

Hop plant in April

Growing hops at home is extraordinarily fun. The shoots emerge from the ground in early spring and grow very rapidly until the cones (flowers) are harvested in August and September. Commercially, they are grown on 18 foot trellis systems, but the bines (technically not vines) can grow much higher. There are well over 100 known varieties, each with unique characteristics of aroma, flavor, bitterness level, and degrees of susceptibility to disease and insects. The world's historical beer brewing regions of England, Germany, Belgium, and North America all have specific hop varieties which are important in defining beer styles. In the United States, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho are the biggest producing states, although more and more growers are appearing on the scene to meet the increasing demand of craft brewers trying to keep up with the skyrocketing popularity of hop-forward styles like India Pale Ale (IPA). There are three conventional ways hops are used in brewing: early in the boil to add bitterness, mid to late boil to add flavor, and post fermentation 'dry hopping' to add aroma. A good brewer will carefully choose hop varieties to complement the malt characteristics of the recipe and fine tune the process to create something delicious.

Hop plant in August on 12 foot bamboo trellis

I've grown multiple varieties in the past, but this year I planted Centennial in the backyard. Centennial has a fairly substantial grapefruit and somewhat candy-like sweet aroma which I've heard compared to fruit loops cereal, along with medium bittering potential. One of the best known beers brewed with this hop is Bell's Two Hearted Ale. If you will be brewing with your own hops, it’s important to get your rhizomes from a source that can guarantee the variety. Many home brewing supply shops will sell them in early spring and they are also available by online order. I got my rhizome at the local nursery, which had a large selection of desirable varieties. Professional growers have told me that it takes three years for plants to reach maturity, where the root system is established and the harvest amount reaches full potential. I was pleasantly surprised that my first year plant produced more cones than I expected. Like anything, doing some research is recommended to ensure the plants are happy. My top two resources have been The Homebrewer's Garden (Joe Fisher and Dennis Fisher) and Homegrown Hops (David R. Beach). I also recommend Fresh Hops and Left Fields Hops for ordering online and for good information about hop growing.

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Harvested August 28

This year I harvested on August 28. One of the most challenging and important skills involves learning how to judge peak ripeness. Pick too early and the hops are grassy, vegetal, and have low flavor and bittering qualities. Pick too late and skunky, oniony aromas appear. Fresh hops are fragile and need to be used (in the highly seasonal 'wet hop' or 'fresh hop' beers) or dried immediately. I used a door screen propped on some boxes with a fan blowing over them. If the humidity is low, they will dry in a few days, but I usually finish drying in a dehydrator at its lowest temperature setting for several hours. Then the hops are vacuum sealed and frozen, as warm temperature and oxygen are the top causes of deterioration. This year the final yield was 396 grams of dried hops. The amount needed for one batch of beer depends on the style, but I expect to get about 5 - 10 batches out of the 2016 harvest. The tricky part is not knowing the exact alpha acid content (bittering potential, which is given on commercially grown hops) so it takes some experimentation to dial in the recipe and process using homegrown hops.

I would encourage anyone interested to try growing your own hops. You can ask around to find out which varieties do well locally, although Cascade is one that is known to be very hardy. The best-known beer with Cascade hops is Sierra Nevada pale ale. For non-brewers, hops can be used to make tea or a hop pillow since they contain compounds that make you sleepy. And a little bit of online research will give you some ideas on how to use hops as a cooking ingredient. I also need to mention that hops are very toxic to dogs (and likely cats) and there are numerous accounts of sad endings from homebrewers who found this out too late. Please be careful. Never give beer to dogs.

Hops ready to dry

Hops drying