Portland: Portobello & Departure Lounge

This is the third and final instalment in my Portland series (for now, maybe I'll get to go back one day), read parts one and two here and here.

One place I knew I had to visit during my stay was Portobello, I'd heard so much about it and whilst a greasy burger from a food cart out the back of a dive bar is probably more my style I wanted to fine dine it up with the best of 'em at this upscale vegan joint.

Stephanie, Mandee, Randi and I managed to snag a table just before the Vida Vegan Con hoards descended upon the city. We decided to go all out with starters, mains and desserts and Mandee and I started with the cheese plate which came with three kinds of cheese, baguette and quince paste. 

Honestly I was a tad disappointed with this plate, I know vegan cheeses are expensive but for $16 I was, um, a little surprised at quite how tiny this plate of food was. Maybe I'm just a philistine? I will say that everything on the plate was delicious and I believe that the cheeses were from Heidi Ho, Chao and Punk Rawk Labs; my favourite being the peppered cashew cheese.

Stephanie ordered the Beet Tartare which actually ended up being the highlight of the fine dining experience in my mind. This perfectly creamy cashew cheese and roasted beetroot dish was beautifully presented, came with plenty of delicious French bread, and, if this had indeed been served at a dive bar I'd have licked the plate.

Next up we have Asparagus Fries, we almost didn't order these which would have been stupid. Served in a cone to stop the light tempura batter from becoming soggy these crisp delicious fries were my second favourite part of the meal.

I think I ordered badly again with my main course because I really didn't love this Summer Pea Ravioli with Morels.

I love ravioli and I love both english peas and mushrooms but something about this dish missed the mark for me. I did however love Stephanie's Gnocchi with Spring Vegetables which was weird because normally I am not a gnocchi fan. The moral of this story is go to dinner with Stephanie, order what she orders, enjoy.

I couldn't pass on dessert because there was a Chocolate Hazelnut Bomb on the menu!

This chocolate explosion was topped with crunchy caramelised hazelnuts and it was an amazingly rich end to the meal which left everyone feeling stuffed to the point of bursting.

I would definitely go back to Portobello, the dishes I enjoyed still stick in my mind today (uuuhhhh that beet tartare) and I love that their menu changes with the seasons. If you go let me know what your favourites are!

Our next dining destination was Departure Lounge somewhere that I hadn't even heard of before Vida Vegan Con started, but after recommendations from both Isa and Grant Butler (VVC's restaurant review panelist) it seemed ridiculous not to pay them a visit.

Our group of four ordered many, many things to share and drove our not-so-food-photo-obsessed friend a little crazy with all of our picture taking. If you're reading this, sorry again. I still feel a little bad about being such an annoying dinner companion.

Departure Lounge is not a vegan restaurant but they do have a separate vegan menu and a commitment to creating out of this world vegan dishes. Good enough for me.

This dish of Wok Fried Brussels Sprouts with chilli, lime and mint was outstanding. I have no idea how anyone can make sprouts taste this good and on the strength of this dish alone I'd like to invite the chef to come and live with Nick and I. I'm sure Nick wouldn't mind once he tasted the food.

The next dish of Gingered Mushrooms came with sweet & sour rhubarb, watercress and ramp. As a lover of all things rhubarb I was delighted to see it represented in a savoury dish, breaking out of it's role as a filler of pies and crumbles. This was exceptional.

We ordered all of the sushi on the menu which included this Grilled Shiitake Roll with avocado, cucumber, scallion and carrot sauce which I adored.

Next up was the Ume Shisho Roll with pickled plums, cucumber and jalapeño. Whilst I loved the bold plum flavours in this dish I did (somewhat unsuccessfully) have to eat around the jalapeños!

The table also ordered these beautiful BBQ Tempeh Buns.

These steamed buns were stuffed with Korean BBQ sauce and spicy coleslaw. I didn't try one, I can tell when something's spicy enough that it'll kill my tastebuds and my dining companions agreed that it'd definitely push me over the edge!

This Greens and Seeds roll was the thing that got us all excited about Departure Lounge's menu. How could a place serving nooch sushi ever steer you wrong?! This roll was also stuffed with avocado, cucumber, herbs, pumpkin seeds & sesame and I'm pretty sure there was some wasabi or something in there too because this roll packed a strong horseradishy punch.

Last but by no means least the final part of our sushi selection hit the table, the Sweet Potato Tempura roll was a spicy miso spiked delight and I loved the addition of even more nori - delicious.

If I'm lucky enough to end up back in Portland this is somewhere I'll most certainly re-visit and now that I've blogged about it I'll be able to leave the iPhone in my bag and just enjoy the overall dining experience. The food here was stunning both in taste and presentation and I'd highly recommend it to any vegans with their sights set on Portland.

Portland Part 2

This is the second instalment of my Portland series, read Part 1 here.

One of my favourite PDX hangouts was the vegan friendly bar White Owl Social Club and it had nothing to do with this Mac & Cheese Burger...okay, that was a lie, it had EVERYTHING to do with this Mac & Cheese burger. That and the delicous drinks menu and bargaintastic happy hour. Oh and did I mention that they even have a black and white photobooth, so rad! Anyway, THE BURGER! Just look at it...

...isn't it just one of the best things you've ever seen?! It's mac and cheese, fried, in a bun, with a side of fries. That's the triple carb win right there. I don't think I need to say much more than this, I ate it five times in a week. 

I also visited on another occasion when I decided to branch out and Mandee and I shared a selection of goodies from around the menu. We went for the mac and cheese, which I thought was better in burger form. Fried pickles, um, amazing, I'm a total pickle convert. And the BBQ Pulled Jackfruit Burger with Fries. This was our attempt at ordering in a restrained manner, I love us!

Portland has a tonne of vegan friendly bars, I also went to both The Bye & Bye (where I took a terrible photograph of a delicious grilled cheese sandwich at 2am) and The Sweet Hereafter (where I hung out with many VVC attendees at the Unofficial Conference After-party).

I loved all three of these bars because of the plentiful outdoor seating, great drinks menus and the fact that food is served all hours. Whoever came up with the law saying that food must be served if alcohol is being served is a real winner! I wish we had bars like these in Brighton.

Alongside the super vegan friendly bars another thing I love about Portland is the Food Carts. Two of my most frequented carts were DC Vegetarian...

and Sonny Bowl.

Both of these carts are situated Downtown on the corner of SW 3rd and Washington which means you can mix it up and order something from both carts if you wish. On more than one occasion I grabbed a breakfast sandwich or bagel with cream cheese from DC Veg and a Kale - Mango Smoothie from Sonny Bowl. The perfect breakfast combo.

Another highlight of the food cart scene was Homegrown Smoker. I've been wanting to visit this cart since I first heard about it back in 2011 and it certainly didn't disappoint. I was totally unable to choose between the Macnocheeto, a vegan mac 'n cheese burrito, and the Carolina Chick'n Sandwich so I went all out and ordered the Combo Platter instead.

The platter comes with your choice of two proteins, two sides and corn bread and I picked the Smoked Soy Curls, Smoked Chikn', mac no-cheese and STFU Puppies - corn fritters with remoulade sauce. My choices were definitely influenced by my chilli allergy / aversion and I was surprised that after discussing this with the person working that they still covered my chosen proteins with chilli sauce! It was all okay though, some careful scraping and liberal use of the remoulade came to the rescue and whilst this meal was still right at the top end of my heat tolerance it was totally amazing. 

This was the first time I'd ever tried Beyond Meat and I loved it, the texture was spot on and I still can't believe how meat-like it is. The soy curls were super smokey and flavourful and the mac no-cheese was out of this world delicious and creamy. I had no idea what to expect from the corn fritters but unsurprisingly I loved them and the corn bread was by far the best I've ever had. I will definitely be going back to Homegrown Smoker to order this again but next time I'll just be sure to specify no extra hot sauce!

There were plenty of other food carts I never got the chance to check out including The Cheese Plate, Native Bowl and Potato Champion. I did make it to Flavour Spot though and you can read about that here.

Moving back to brick and mortar vegan eateries Back to Eden is right up there with my favourite places in the world. On my first visit Nick and I just grabbed some soft serve, chocolate of course, which I insisted on topping with their house made caramel sauce even though the dude told me it was for ice cream not soft serve and it'd probably slide off.

He was totally wrong and it was brilliant, it even stayed on long enough for me to take a picture and it elevated my cone to the next level.

On my second visit with Randi I ordered the Quiche which was the most delicious quiche I've ever eaten vegan or not. It was perfect, really eggy and perfectly browned on top. Now, if only I'd managed to get the asparagus the right way up for the photo...

I followed my quiche with a 5" Strawberry Rhubarb pie, it had a perfect crumb topping and exactly none of it got saved for later!

Back to Eden is definitely on my re-visit list, the pastries and ice cream I tried were wonderful and if I'd had more time I could have stayed in there all day eating my way through their bakery case. I found out after my visit that Back to Eden is totally gluten free which blew my mind, I can't believe pastries this good were made without gluten and it makes me feel like I need to up my xgfx baking game.

One place I'd never envisioned myself checking out was Prasad but I'd heard so many good things about it over the weekend that I gave in and headed there with my slightly kale obsessed friend Randi. This restaurant is in the Pearl district and shares its space with a yoga studio, it was really busy when we visited but it was somehow still a relaxed and mellow environment - it must be all that yoga!

I'm not exactly sure what came over me when I ordered The Mightly Bowl which is made up of quinoa, steamed greens, lentils and a garlic tahini sauce. It was simple and tasty but looking at the menu there are so many more exciting choices!

I had a carrot and orange juice on the side which is one of my favourite juice combos. Whilst we were eating I noticed a note on the menu beneath The Mighty Bowl stating that Prasad believe that everyone deserves a warm, healthy, organic meal and therefor they offer this bowl on a donation basis, nobody is turned away. I think this is a wonderful thing for a business to do and they're not wrong, everyone does deserve a nutritious, filling, healthy meal no matter how much money they have. Nice one Prasad.

This last spot was probably the most surprising to me because I kinda went into it thinking, sure, bowls, how good can they really be? And, well, when you're at Canteen they can be pretty fanfuckingtastic!

I ordered the Portland Bowl which consists of a base of quinoa topped with steamed kale, baked maple tempeh, noochy cheese sauce, chopped local hazelnuts and grated carrot. They even have shakers of nooch so that you can go extra crazy with the cheesiness. This was a magnificent bowl and it's something I've been craving and working on recreating since I got home!

In the next instalment of my travel-ventures I'll be posting about two upscale Portland eateries, Departure Lounge and Portobello.

Portland Part 1

I am finally over being overwhelmed by my backlog of pictures from Portland, the food's still there for the eatin' so I'm damn well gonna blog about it!

As soon as we arrived in town we headed straight to Sweetpea Baking Co to grab some tasty eats and to say hi to my buddy Ms Panda With Cookie because it'd been three whole years since I'd seen her in real life. Three years! I needed a panda hug. Sadly on this visit there was no panda hugging to be done, something which I think we definitely made up for during the rest of my trip. We even double-team-hugged a large chimp together. Ah, memories.

I ordered a delicious Chickpea Tuna Salad Sandwich...

Note : I took this before anyone taught me how to take a picture of a sandwich. All things considered I don't think it's that bad! 

...and a Chocolate Peanut Butter Brownie.

Both of which I loved but the real jewel in Sweetpea's crown as far as I'm concerned are their deeeelicious biscuits and gravy. I chose to get mine with some tempeh bacon and I've seriously been waking up thinking about this almost daily ever since. It was amazing. I wish I was less lazy and could be bothered to learn how to make my own biscuits, it can't be that hard can it?!

Mandee and I chased our breakfast biscuits with some pastries because we're awesome like that. You know what else was awesome? Sweetpea's pastries that's what. Yet another thing I'm scared to try to make after an epic croissant failure back in '08!

One spot you simply cannot miss on a vegan tour of Portland is Voodoo Doughnut. They have two PDX locations, one Downtown and one in NE and I managed to squeeze in five or six visits during my stay.

Voodoo Doughnut have a vegan version of almost every doughnut on their large menu and they're crazy cheap so you can buy loads.

The day I realised that Mandee and I would be forever friends was the day she went out early and brought doughnuts back to our room before I'd even emerged from under the duvet. Best. Roomie. Ever. 

Doughnuts in bed are the best, I hope Nick reads this and gets the (not so subtle) hint that he should get up early in Vegas, drive to Ronald's, and bring all of the doughnuts back to me!

That chocolate topped, peanut butter drizzled, cookie covered monstrosity, named the Old Dirty Bastard, was amazing. I kept ordering it again and again not needing to branch out because this doughnut is perfect. The Gay Bar on the right was full of cream, not jam as I had suspected, meaning that I didn't love it but everyone else did!

Another place I fell head over heels for in Portland was Sizzle Pie, vegan pizza, by the slice, open until late, what more could you want? Well, honestly, I'd like their brunch pizza to be available at all times but I'm pretty demanding like that!

This Raw Power slice was my favourite and every time I walked through this neighbourhood I made whoever I was with stop for a slice. Sorry, not sorry.

Nick and I went for brunch at Hungry Tiger Too before he left, due to someone's (ahem, Nick) time consuming hairstyle it was super late by the time we arrived and I was the kind of hungry that has crossed passed hangry and into a whole 'nother dimension. I ordered the most epic sounding thing on the menu...

...and then got some corndogs on the side much to the amusement of our waitress.

My Greek Scramble came packed full of olives, tempeh bacon, spinach, garlic, tomatoes and Daiya cheese and was served with with sourdough toast and an enormous hash brown. This was one of my favourite meals of the whole trip. The scramble was super flavourful and if somewhere has sourdough toast on the menu I will love them forever. 

The corn dogs on the other hand? Good god no! I didn't actually realise that a corn dog is a sausage on a stick covered in sweet, yes, SWEET, batter. Now I love maple syrup with my tempeh bacon these days but this? This was taking it too far! American's, you crazy! I am glad I tried a corn dog though and if you haven't ever had the pleasure you should give 'em a whirl, but don't say I didn't warn ya!

This next delicious brunch is from Blossoming Lotus where Nick and I were lucky enough to have a brunch date with the lovely Jess Scone and her hilarious ladyfriend Jules.

This Coconut Bacon BLT was perfect and was made all the more delicious because it was accompanied by a mimosa and wonderful company. We both wish that we lived closer to these ladies so that we could have brunch together all the time! I'm still a little obsessed with coconut bacon right now, you can't buy it in the UK like you can in the US so I've been making my own using this recipe.

Last but by no means least Nick and I managed to make it to flavour spot, a waffle cart with two locations in North / NE Portland. There's only one vegan option, the No. 3 Vegan Sausage & Maple, but that was a-ok with us. Why would you need anything else?

It was as epic as it looks and for $5.50 it was a total bargain. This delicious crisp on the outside, fluffy on the inside, waffle was folded around vegan sausage patties and slatherd with organic vegan maple spread. I love this sandwich SO HARD. I really, really wanted to visit this cart more than once but, alas, opening hours and a base downtown made it impossible.

That's not all I ate in Portland though, Portland Part Deux is coming up real soon. Watch this space.

Vida Vegan Con 2013

Hey y'all! I'm back in Brighton! I had an amazing time travelling around the Pacific Northwest, I was away for almost a month and whilst I was there I was lucky enough to attend Vida Vegan Con in Portland! I know! So exciting! I'd been dreaming of going to this vegan bloggers conference since I first heard about it's inception back in 2011 and it was everything I'd imagined and more.

The weekend kicked off with an Unofficial Meet & Greet at local vegan friendly bar White Owl Social Club. It was fun but kinda overwhelming to meet so many bloggers in one go hence the lack of photos, I was far to busy talking to everyone and cramming the mac 'n cheese burger into ma mouth!

Yup, the mac 'n cheese IS the burger. This carb on carb meal with a side of carbs was one of my Portland fave's but I would perhaps suggest that eating it three times in one week like I did could be a bit much. If you can eat it four times in a week I'll hand over my Carb Queen crown!

The next morning everyone was up bright and early to grab their Swag Bags...I was too excited to photograph the whole thing but it was epic, like, almost the same size as my suitcase epic! My first class of the day was Food Styling with Hannah Kaminsky where she showed us amongst other things how to turn this messy looking Whole Foods takeout Pad Thai into a beautifully plated meal. This was amazing to watch and I'll certainly be trying this next time I grab some takeout from Street Diner or Iydea.

Continuing the photography theme one of my favourite classes of the weekend was Isa's iPhone photography class. Isa is totally hilarious and the class was was super practical (we could follow along using the app's on our phones) and helpful, there were tips on everything from taking the photos to styling (swatches!) and editing.

I don't actually own a camera, I take all of my photos with an iPhone so this was the perfect class for me.

Erika from Sews Before Bros wrote some really in depth write ups of the classes she attended so follow the class name links below for the full scoop on some of my favourite classes.

One of the most enjoyable classes I attended was the Vegan MoFo Workshop with Amey, Kittee and Mo, these gals are super funny and it's no secret that MoFo is one of my favourite times of year. There were some great tips for both MoFo veterans and for newbies to the crazy month long blogging event.

I started looking forward to Restaurant Reviews with Authority with Grant Butler as soon as the agenda was announced. Grant writes restaurant reviews for both The Oregonian and MIX magazine and as a blogger who mainly writes restaurant reviews I was excited to learn some new things and to see where I'd been going right or wrong. Thankfully I haven't been making any massive faux pas and his class gave me some great tools to deal with how to write about places I don't love immediately.

The Making of a Zine: From Concept to Distribution with Amey, Joanna and Kittee was one of the most inspiring workshops for me.  I love zines and I have a pretty decent collection including zines written by all of the members of the panel. I've wanted to write a zine of my own for ages and this really gave me practical tips about how to get started. Amey even has a great DIY zine making how-to on her blog.

I also really loved listening to Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan from Our Hen House discussing how to expand your message to include animal rights and the Body Image Acceptance and Veganism panel actually made me cry. I loved everyones honesty and bravery in the face of such a tough topic.

The Portland Breakfast Showcase had to be the foodie highlight of the weekend for me. There were so many amazing options and I did my best to try them all! It was served on a first come first served basis so I made sure I was first in line for Sizzle Pie's brunch pizza. I went for the Drugs Benedict which is topped with a white bean & shallot spread, cheesy tofu scramble, bacon bits, hashbrowns & green onions.

I definitely made the right choice here and I even got a bonus slice for being first in line! I fully believe that pizza is the breakfast of champions (I even have a badge to prove it!) and this one even had ranch for dipping.

Obviously I couldn't only try one option at a breakfast showcase, I also tried all of these. Clockwise from the top left, the Meatloaf Benedict from A.N.D Cafe, Tempeh Bacon Quiche from Back to Eden (I have more to write about Back to Eden - it might be one of my favourite places ever), Chocolate and Lemon Doughnut halves from Cinnamon PDX, and Summer Vegetable Panissa from Portobello.

Alongside the meet & greet, the classes, and the breakfast showcase the Galarama was one of my favourite parts of the weekend. I put on a dress and make up and made a beeline for the food!

The first thing I headed towards was the So Delicious ice cream bar. I'm pretty into ice cream, especially if it's chocolate, but my main reason was that I'd heard there were brownies from Capital City Bakery in Austin - these are my favourite brownies in the whole wide world and this little sundae was perfect.

There were also two food trucks at the galarama, Tandem Treats and Taco Pedaler as well as trays of cheese made by Miyoko Schinner from Artisan Vegan Life. It was a tough decision but I couldn't resist a Tandem Treats dawg topped with sauerkraut, onions and a classic mustard / ketchup combo.

I did actually manage to take some pictures of people at this event, not many but I tried.

L-R Mandee AKA Cupcake Kitteh, Randi, Me.

L-R Paul, A Chimp, Lisa AKA PandaWithCookie.

L-R Stephanie AKA Lazy Smurf, Me.

Sunday's non-class highlight had to be the Vegan Battle Royale and Ice Cream Social. I kept score for one of the teams in the Battle Royale and I certainly made the most of the ice cream social! These almond milk based Mocha Almond Fudge mini bars from So Delicious were the best ice cream bars I've ever eaten. I really, really wish we could get them in the UK. Sort it out So Delicious!

As you can probably tell I really, really loved Vida Vegan Con. I learnt so much and I met and hung out with so many positive, inspiring and all-round awesome people, there are far too many of you to name - you know who you are! Thank you for making VVC so rad!

Whilst I was having all of the fun at Vida Vegan Con I was also thinking about my blog readers who couldn't attend. I really, really wish that everyone from the vegan blogging community could have been there! In an attempt to spread the VVC love I started collecting things for a giveaway because, let's be honest, the pictures of the Swag Bags all over Instagram and Twitter were probably making you pretty jealous! It's also my birthday really soon (less than a week, so excited!) so I bought you some presents and threw them in there too!

All you need to do to win this Peanut Butter & Co tote stuffed full of all of the goodies pictured below is to leave me a comment telling me which class on the VVC agenda you'd have been most excited to attend.

This goodie bag contains a jar of Booda Butter Organic Moisturiser, a Booda Butter lip balm, a Hurraw  almond lip balm, Amey's Unofficial VVC Cookbooklet, a Vegan Dish keychain, a Field Roast t-shirt, stickers, a bag the new of Earth Balance Pops, two Peanut Butter Cookie Luna bars, a Go Max Go Thumbs Up bar, an Eli's Earth Dream Big Bar, a Chocolove Almonds & Sea Salt bar, Tofurky jerky, sample size packs of Nacheez, Dandies, Simply Hemp Milk, Surf Sweets and a whole lotta PB sachets from PB & Co, Artisana and Earth Balance. 

The competition is open to anyone living in Europe who didn't attend Vida Vegan Con. The competition closes on Monday June 17th. Don't forget to leave me some kind of contact details and good luck!

The competition is now closed. The winner, who I picked at random, is SarahByng! Congrat's Sarah! I'll be getting in touch with ya soon.

I also wanted to mention that I'm currently up for the Best Blogger award in the UK's Veg Fest Awards! If you haven't voted yet I'd love it if you'd consider voting for me, here's a link so that you can check it out if you want to.