Weekend Getaway: Portland, Oregon
From a food cart serving bulgogi crunchwraps to a James Beard awarded Haitian restaurant, the City of Roses is one of the country's best places to eat.
Welcome to the weekend!
For today’s newsletter, we’re headed to the great city of Portland, Oregon. Portland’s food scene is one of best in America, and over our visits we have eaten so, so well. From Thai barbecue to Haitian fare, Mexican sandwiches to Indonesian tasting menus, the offerings are deep and rich. Plus, Portland has a top-tier drinking scene (as you know from our Portland Bar Crawl). We’ll dig into it all in today’s Weekend Getaway newsletter. Our Weekend Getaway issues, which run on the first Friday of the month, are exclusively for our paid subscribers.
Once you’ve read the story, be sure to download our companion Field Guide to Portland, Oregon, which assembles all of our recommendations into a handy digital download organized into a four-day itinerary. Our guides lay out what places to go as well as what we recommend ordering, and include links to social media and Google maps. You can access them offline, too, which makes them a perfect companion for planning your trip on your flight. It’s available for $20 on our website or is free for paid subscribers.
Finally, our Weekend Reading list features stories about a Charleston restaurant we’re itching to try, Amtrak’s new Mardi Gras line, and island getaways where you don’t need a passport.
Thanks for reading!
— Amy Cavanaugh & Kenney Marlatt
Editors, American Weekender
Rose City Eats
PORTLAND, ORE. — Portland makes a wonderful long weekend visit. You can soak up the natural beauty of Mount Hood, visit landmarks like the International Test Rose Garden and the Portland Japanese Garden, or hit the shops (Powell’s Books is an institution and I have lost entire mornings browsing). But no matter the reason for your trip, you’re also going to eat well. That’s thanks to factors like the vibrant food cart scene, the city’s deep international influences, and the devotion that many chefs have to using local Pacific Northwest ingredients.
We kicked off our most recent visit by meeting up with American Weekender Friend Bill Oakley for lunch at The Heist Bar & Food Carts, since he wanted to introduce us to a key part of Portland’s food scene. Heist is a newer food cart pod, and as Bill told us, it’s one of the city’s best collections of eateries. It proved to be a great introduction — we hit up the Korean fusion cart Kim Jong Grillin for bulgogi crunchwraps and bánh mì-inspired hot dogs, Laotian-Cambodian Golden Triangle for nam khao (a crispy rice salad) and garlic-fish sauce wings, and comfort food cart Fresh N’ Funky for the best chopped cheese we’ve had outside of New York.
After lunch, we checked into our hotel, the Woodlark, which was walking distance to many spots we wanted to go — like Multnomah Whiskey Library, which, if you’re a cocktail fan, is a non-negotiable stop on any Portland trip.
While Multnomah is members-only, you can book a $25 pass online that will allow you to make a reservation. It’s worth it — the shelves are filled with all kinds of bourbons, Scotches, and ryes, and the menu features neat pours as well as cocktails. Two favorites: The Wandering West, a minty, bittersweet American single malt concoction, and the Bobby Burns, a Scotch classic with Benedictine and a sweet vermouth blend.