Irving Street Kitchen – Portland, Oregon

jmsnowlady

15 years ago

Saturday August 13, 2011

Portland, Oregon

Perfect and Clean Weather

Hello from Portland, Oregon! I'm here with my BFF Sandra and her BFF Marilyn. We are here to do wine tasting and celebrate our birthdays (we are all Cancers!). Sandra and I have been celebrating our birthdays all year round (LoL). Anyhoo, generous Sandra, had free tickets on Southwest and a free rental car with National so we decided to spend the weekend here. We are off to Williamette Valley for our Pinot tour but last nite, we had a fabulous dinner at the Pearl district of Portland.

The Pearl District is the "Soho-ish" artsy district of Portland. According to this website, the area is called Pearl because of this story. "The story goes like this: A local gallery owner coined the phrase years ago to suggest that the buildings in the warehouse district were like crusty oysters, and that the galleries and artists' lofts within were like pearls. As local business people were looking to label the growing area—the "warehouse district" or the "brewery district" were two suggestions—a travel writer borrowed the phrase and the name stuck."

We got into Portland around 5pm, got our call and checked into our hotel in time for a cocktail before heading out to the Irving Street Kitchen restaurant in the Pearl District. Marilyn recommended it and it was fabulous! Service was great and the food a Northwest take on Southern food. So most of the food was local which is something I very much like. We were a bit buzzed when we got there as we had two glasses of wine at the hotel lounge first (We are staying at the Nines, a very chi-chi Starwood boutique hotel). So we quickly asked them to bring us bread and their house cured olives which was delish! The olives seemed to have been marinated in honey, vinegar (balsamic?) and orange. Very different but very good.

Our very good looking waiter and even more better looking waiter in training, went through the menu and we decided to have what they recommended.

We started with a fresh heirloom tomato salad and a salad of fried green tomatoes with tuna bacon. Yes, you heard it right, tuna bacon. Basically, it's smoked, cured tuna. Both were VERY good. It's the first time I had fried green tomatoes and both Sandra and Marilyn said that they were the best fried green tomatoes they have ever had.

We shared two entrees: Fried Chickenw/Collard Green, Mashed Potatoes and Gravy and a roasted Halibut w/a light citrus sauce on mashed potatoes. Yum! They also have local wines on "tap" so we had a carafe of the Chehalem Pinot Noir from Williamette Valley.

After stuffing ourselves, instead of walking, we took a cab back to the hotel and of course, had a night cap of wine and also some dessert from the lounge and called it a day!

The Irving Street Kitchen