Welby Family On Fleek – Pacific Northwest Fall 2017 – Day 6 Portland (9/27/17)

The day’s plans were to explore Portland. We slept in, putzed around the Airbnb and then headed off to brunch at Tasty n Alder. When I first looked at the menu I was unimpressed – this did not look like brunch food. But after careful examination it really was – but with a total original twist: regular dishes repurposed for breakfast – mainly by adding an egg. Food is served family style – we had four different dishes and all were great and all really worked for breakfast.

We then explored some shops in downtown, walked to the river and hit some more shops as we passed through the Pearl district of Portland. Portland’s retail is a mix of the familiar national brands/retailers and some truly original local/regional choices. Powell’s City of Books is an epic book store – per their web site: is the largest used and new bookstore in the world.

As we hit the afternoon, we ventured to our first brewery of the day: Fat Head’s Brewery. After the beer disappointments of Canada, it was great to be back in serious craft beer country. Fat Heads had a rich selection and a nice tap room – with some unremarkable outdoor space. It was in the mid-80s with no humidity, so outdoors was the way to go. The ladies had a flight, Patrick had a couple of their IPAs (Built For Speed West Coast IPA and New Order IPA) and I had an IBUsive. Good stuff – however I am oddly biased against breweries that brand with cartoon characters (in this case a guy with a fat head) and it had a mild corporate feel (sure enough looking at their web site they are kind of a mini chain founded in Ohio).

Next we moved on to a corner with three breweries: 10 Barrel Brewing Company,Backpedal Brewing and Rogue Distillery and Public House.

At 10 Barrel, not only do they have great beer, they have a great rooftop outdoor space, made better by a top-10 weather day. The ladies had a mega flight (10 beers) and Patrick and I tried their IPA’s.

We made a quick stop at Backpedal as they had an event and needed to shoo us out. Backpedal is a combination tap room and garage for their pedal pubs – they have a nice collection of beers too.

Finally we stopped at Rogue for a beer and snack, before heading back to the AirBnb for some quiet time before heading out to dinner.

Dinner was at the Screen Door – which had a reinvented southern comfort food vibe. Laura and I shared an amazing fried chicken, Al had trout and Patrick had brisket. All were delicious.

Although completely stuffed we found our way over to Salt and Straw (notable endorsement: Oprah’s favorite ice cream) for dessert. We shared a Honey Lavendar scoop (better than it sounds) and Sea Salt with Carmel Ribbons (as good as that sounds – it was better than it sounds). This was amazing ice cream – even on a full stomach it tasted amazing. It was 10:45 on a school night and the line was out the door.

With that we called it a day.