Dave Knows Portland

Archives for November 2008

November 27-30: Spend Tofurky Day at the Zoo!

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Did you know Tofurky was invented and is produced in Hood River, Oregon?

And did you know that the Washington Park Oregon Zoo is offering free admission on Thanksgiving?

In appreciation for the public’s generous support of the $125 million bond measure to improve outdated exhibits and make the zoo more sustainable, we’re holding an open house on Thanksgiving Day, with free admission. Come learn more about the zoo and its programs.

Then Friday there’s Macy’s holiday parade downtown. And a million shoppers cavorting around all the malls and stores. I recommend staying in all weekend, recovering from the Tofurky. Save your energy for the Holiday Ale Festival which starts next Wednesday!

Fort George Brewery and Public House in Astoria

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Co-piloting is hard. I was craving a beer. Also homemade sausage. Lo and behold in Astoria, Oregon there’s a brewery and attached pub that makes its own sausages!

At Fort George Brewery and Public House I ordered a pint of the excellent Cavatica Stout. Heather partook of a Dakota Fanning, a concoction containing cranberry juice and Squirt. We shared the sausage appetizer, a platter of housemade pork sausages accompanied by flat bread, cheese, and mustard. The sausage was fantastic. There were four kinds; a sweet Italian, a boudin blanc, one with caraway seeds and one containing bits of Tillamook cheddar.

Fools that we are we ordered more food. Fort George’s fish and chips is made with locally caught albacore tuna. The dense chunks of albacore were battered and deep fried as usual. I prefer lighter and moister cod in my fish and chips but this hearty version was good, though a bit dry. The portion was huge too; I tried to help Heather with her order, but after my albacore steak and melted cheddar “tuna melt” I couldn’t handle more than a few bites. I did, however, make room for the intriguingly monikered North II – Grand Crüe, a Belgiany strong ale with a host of ingredients including pilsner malt, belgian wit yeast, raw Hawaiian cane sugar, oats, and lemon grass. The combination was delicious and lighter than you’d expect. It reminded me of a sweet-tart Madeira wine. The bartender informed us that North II – Grand Crüe will be available at Portland’s Holiday Ale Fest in a couple weeks.

Tiny Astoria, Oregon (population 10,045) has three breweries (that I know of): Astoria Brewing Company, Fort George Brewery and Public House, and an outpost of the Rogue empire. So that’s a brewery for every 3348 residents.

By contrast, within Portland’s city limits 30 breweries (more than any other city in the world) produce beer for 568,380 people. That’s a brewery for every 18,946 Portlanders.

So by my calculations Astoria has nearly 6 times more breweries than Portland!

I’ll be heading back to Astoria when I can, hopefully for more than a day trip, to try the rest of Fort George’s, and Astoria’s, beers.

Heather has blogged more about our trip to Astoria here: Tank Full Of Gas, Chapter X: Astoria, Oregon

The Calgary Herald visits Portland

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It’s become a personal joke that every travel article written about Portland contains at least one factual error and the odds are even that the phrase “at the confluence of the Columbia and Willamette Rivers” will rear its head.

Joseph Blake’s Portland travel article for the Calgary Herald, West coast cool, does not submit to the latter, but falls right in line on the former.

During a recent, long weekend my wife and I spent hours at Portland’s sprawling Art Museum, an afternoon enjoying views of Mt. Ranier, Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens while walking the trails of Washington Park, and an evening at the Center Stage production of Guys and Dolls, but mostly we ate, and ate, and ate.

Actually this one’s a twofer; Mt. Rainier is misspelled and, though Wikipedia says “on days of exceptional clarity, it can also be seen from as far away as Portland, Oregon”, it is the mountain vista one associates with Seattle. In all probability Mt. Adams was the third mountain in Mr. Blake’s purview.

But that’s nitpicking. As travel articles go, it’s fine. Standards such as Powells Books, the Pearl District, NW 23rd, Saturday Market, and *sigh*, Paley’s Place make appearances, and there are some good lines:

If you love cities, you’ll love Portland. Oregon’s largest city is both a nostalgic reflection of North America’s early 20th-century urban boom and an in-the-moment vision of a dynamic, environmentally sensitive modern city that works.