Here you go...

http://bit.ly/1l5NLds

Google is pretty accurate.

I think it took about 5 hours from the border to Portland non-stop last time I went.

Factor in your house to border, and border wait times.

Just got back from Portland. Drive is about 5.5 hours if you take I-5. Consider the traffic through Seattle if you're travelling through rush hour.

RS never disappoints! So far I've used RS for most of my planning to many places (Hawaii, Seattle, New York) and many of the foodie spots you guys have recommended have been just as if not BETTER than those "Top 10" lists on Yelp and other websites. :thumbs:

I will be heading to Portland for the first time next month for 3 days to watch a real NBA game for the first time. (The Raptors pre-season exhibition doesn't count lol)

I've read through this entire thread already, got a list of places to hit up from all your input.

I've got down these as must try:
Pok Pok
Podnah's
Kenny & Zuke

Will probably stop at Serious Pie in Seattle or Maggiano's in Bellevue for lunch on the way down.
I've heard many things about Portland food carts but most of you don't seem too impressed lol, is there a "best" food cart to try?

Too bad I will only be IN Portland for roughly 2 days so there's limited space for my stomach haha.
Will definitely do a brewery crawl as well, if I survive.

Screen Door for their southern fried chicken
Pine St. Biscuits for their biscuits (obviously lol)

Glad to see you're checking out Kenny & Zuke's! Their pastrami reuben was soooooooo damn good!

they literally have a food cart square (4 blocks long)
my girl and i had food from Nong's Khao Man Gai, and and dump truck, both pretty tasty

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/vi...8.kbMMcAoCM6eQ

pok pok's was really good, portions are big but beware of long lineups if you dont go early (they do takeout though)

The food trucks are overrated overall. Expensive and ho hum but there are a ton of them all over the city if you want the novelty.

I really like Cafe Broader and their sister location Broader Nord. Would rather hit up Whiskey Soda Lounge over Poks. Tasty & Sons, Tasty & Alder and Clyde Common are good if you like Tuc Craft here.

Goto Salt & Straw. Vastly superior to Earnst/Rain.

There is a pizza place called sizzle in downtown portland. It is the best pizza I've ate ever. I highly recommend it and it also opens late.

^ food cart was MEH at best. We are just too spoiled in Van.

FYI, for POK POK or any other places, before you go, I would CALL them and make reservations or at least how long your line ups are. THE ONLY way to skip line ups are to go when they OPEN right away or before they close. No different than Van.

To echo the post above me, pok pok is jam packed throughout dinner service. We arrived at 5pm and got a table right away, another option is getting take out, which is pretty common with the locals. There's salt and straw ice cream for dessert 2-3 blocks away if you're interested.

I stumbled upon this Vietnamese food cart late at night with my friends as options were limited and I was pleasantly surprised at the Vietnamese sub and salad roll sauce that he seemed to make from scratch while we waited. Sorry I don't have a name for you but it's located in the block with the permanent food trucks lol.

Agreed, Screen Door was amazing. Fluffy waffles and boneless fried chicken breast and a wad of butter and a nice healthy serving of Syrup.

Pok Pok was good. It was super full when we got there but they operate a bar like a block down so we chill there before going to Pok Pok.

I know now never to listen to yelp for ramen places raved by non-asian reviewers and run by non-asians. Went to this ramen place with 4.5 stars. Worst. Ramen. Ever. I won't ever touch Asian specialty foods in the states ever again either.

Ham for Chashu? fucking takoyaki-style tatter totts minus any tako? Fuck. Think of the worst ramen place you can in Vancouver run by chinese people and it would be more legit than ramen down in portland.

Did not try the food carts. Glad I didn't in hindsight. I do not see the appeal of these trucks. Most of the shit they serve are no better than PNE food most of the time and the higher end one like Vij's is overpriced food that falls short of the actual restaurant which isn't amazing to begin with. The worst offender are the Mac and Cheese trucks passing it off as some $10 mac and cheese with a bit of pulled pork on it.

LOL, you do realize Pok Pok is run by a white guy right? 4Head

^saw a documentary on Andy Ricker (the founder), very inspiring start up story but he seems like a dick lol guy is basically half Thai.


Blue star donuts > Voodoo by a long shot.
My favorite breakfast spot is Gravy, their french toast alone is worth the drive down.

bunk .... ( sandwiches )

ITALIAN CURED MEATS - sandwich

RUSSIAN FRIES
w/ Bunk cheese, caramelized onions & russian dressing

good suggestions here, me and the gf planning on going to portland in jan/feb

has anyone taken the Amtrak down from Vancouver central station?

i've heard pretty mixed reviews in terms of the time it actually takes, everyone says it's pretty enjoyable but is it worth it if it takes 8 hours as opposed to the 5 or whatever to drive and have a vehicle there?

that's gotta be based on the travellers. some folks don't mind "taking it all in" with transit etc

myself i wanna get to where i'm heading too. i would drive every single time if it meant 5 hrs travel and a car as opposed to 8 hr train with no ride after.

to add to this thread. i can confirm this dispensary has top notch flowers. it's across the street from the nike factory outlet

7g's per person max for recreational in oregon. $60/quarter for their top shelf stuff.

Bloom Dispensary Portland

Just got back from my first ever Portland trip, it was awesome!

Did not have enough time (and metabolism) for K&Z Deli, but I had the Reggie Deluxe (Fried chicken, gravy, bacon, fried egg, more gravy soaked in homemade biscuits) at Pine State and it was awesome, perfect hangover breakfast after we hit up all the brew pubs the night before lol.
The flights of beer were great, a couple of funky disgusting flavours (stay away from Fruitcake stout at Green Dragon lol) but most were freakin' delicious. The Super Dog IPA at Lucky Labrador stood out to me.

Managed to try NKMG food truck, it was good but nothing worth purposely heading down for. There is slightly better in Vancouver. Mama Lee's on Broadway is one off the top of my head. Also stuffed down a Cod & Chips at Frying Scotsman cart which was super fresh and piping hot.

Pok Pok was amazing, loved the seafood glass noodle, every dish we ordered was excellent and can't wait to go back to try the other dishes! We took our time cruising down to Portland so we got there pretty late when it was almost closing so we only waited 5 minutes for a table.

Stopped for lunch in Seattle at Paseo's for their sandwiches. They were rated very, very highly on Yelp (like Top 10 in North America or something?) so I was super excited to try it but IMHO it was definitely over hyped.

damn..you making me miss portland.

Wish the exchange was better. Agreed that the K&Z special sandwich was rocking.

Just came back from Portland too, went and saw Joey Diaz at Helium Nightclub.

My only thing to add to this thread... go to Casa Diablo Strip Club... Went there with my girlfriend and it was INSANE, pussies everywhere, she got molested a fuckload of times by the strippers, the place was like the movie Dawn Til Dusk inside. Honestly, the best stripclub experience I have had in my life, bar none.

And buying and smoking weed everywhere was also pretty cool, considering it's the United States. I'm a huge Portland fan at this point now.

My experience in Portland this past weekend:

Friday night:
Went to Pok Pok for dinner. Arrived there at 6pm and it was a 2.5 hour wait! WTF! We decided to wait and walked around the area. There are some unique shops near by and they were open quite late. There is a bar across the street from Pok Pok and apparently they are the same owners. They can check your queue for Pok Pok which was pretty cool. I found the food for Pok Pok was too spicy and salty. The chicken was very salty and all a lot of the flavors for the other dishes were quite similar. For the long wait and pricey food, we all thought it wasn't worth it.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...psh08netkc.jpg

Next, we went to a place called Rum Bar. Everything on their menu is around $10 and are quite unique. They are also very strong... the girls couldn't finish their drinks lol. The atmosphere was really good and its a nice place to chill.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ps2lokmnm1.jpg

Next, we decided to check out the nightlife in Portland. The scene is not as big as Vancouver but its big enough to block of streets. We went into two clubs. One called The Dirty and another Barrel Room. The dirty was pretty ratchet lol. Poles with girls on it everywhere, a lot of rap and r&b music. I thought the club was a little too "ghetto" for me. Barrel Room had live music and a dance floor. Music was decent..top 40 hits and some EDM. I wouldn't really recommend those two clubs though... but there were others on the street that we didn't check out.

Saturday Morning:

We arrived at Screen Door at 10:30am. There was an hour wait. The food and service there was really good. I ordered the fried chicken waffle. The chicken was good but just a little dry. All the other dishes were very tasty as well.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...pshpgtd0el.jpg

Next, we went to check out the food trucks. There are many foodtrucks in portland and there are usually in large clusters all over downtown. We went to the one near Target. and there was a whole block full of foodtrucks. The foodtrucks to be honest are not as unique and good as the ones in Vancouver. Nothing looked that appealing and we ended up not ordering anything. You might be a little disappointment if you are comparing it to the ones in Vancouver.

Next we went to Woodburn Outlets. Outlets were good. Nike, adidas, columbia, northface etcetc. It is outdoors like all the other outlets in the states but it is covered.

For dinner, we went to Grassa. It is hand crafted pasta. The restaurant's format is like Fatburger. You order your food at the front entrance. Then you find yourself a spot and the waiters will serve you the food. The pasta was really good and portions were decent. It sort of have a hipster atmosphere to it and the service was great. I highly recommend this place for dinner.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ps5coqbjck.jpg

Next we went to an arcade bar called Ground Kontrol. They have many old arcade games including many of the classics like donkey kong, time crisis, ninja turtles etc etc. Upstairs they have like 30 pinball machines. The change machine only accepts $5 and $1 bills. Most games only requires 25 cents or 50 cents per play. There is also a bar there and a seating area for finger food. It was quite packed in there and there was a small line with a $2 cover at 9pm.

Next, we went to check out a cider brewery called Nat Revelend Cider. They have tons of ciders to choose from. They have a 12 flight and it was quite delicious. The seating area is small but it wasnt crowded when we went. I surprisingly got a small buzz after sharing the flight with my friends lol. I highly recommend this place to check out.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...psp8ajmcad.jpg


Sunday Morning:

We went to Salty's for brunch. It's $44 and on weekends only but its all you can eat fresh seafood. They got dungeness crab, fresh oyster, clams, shrimp, salmon, etc etc etc. There are also breakfast food there too (bacon, hashbrowns) and also meat like prime ribs, ham etc. Food was really good and was quite satisfied. Service was excellent too. Make sure to make reservations.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...psptwc6sir.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...pszspe4gbi.jpg

Then we went home!


We stayed at Best Western by Hayden Meadows just off the highway exit. It is near downtown portland. About 10 min drive to everything. Also there is a walmart 1 min drive from the hotel which was a bonus.

We also used Uber for the first time. It is easy to set up and very very convenient. Way cheaper than a cab and there are many uber drivers in Portland.. even at 3am. If you are planning to drink, leave your car at the hotel and uber everywhere!

If you go to the popular places in Portland, be prepared to be waiting in line for a long time. We walked by voodoo donuts and it was like a 45 min wait at 8pm! Thank goodness it didnt rain when we went but if it did, it would of sucked!
Hope this was helpful for you guys!! :)

bump


planning on going down in the 2nd week of June.

What is there to do besides shopping? Any recommendations on hotels, locations, etc.


From reading this thread, all I can think of is going to Pokpok, and hitting up
Cannon Beach.. :Popcorn

woodburn outlets had actual DEALS. worth the extra 20 - 30 minute drive south.

Also, check out Big Al's. Bowling, Arcade, Carnival games and booze. Basically an adult chuck-e-cheese

seattle was bleh, wouldn't visit again.

For those who stayed in hotels downtown portland, what did you do re: parking situation?

me and the fiancee are heading down soon and we normally use the hotel valet, but at $35/day+tip (for in/out) it seems a bit steep.