Eating Out the Northwest, Part II

On to Portland! The town reminds me a lot of Austin, with it's artsy little downtown, chic uptown area, and loads of great restaurants in between. Our first night there we ate dinner at Jake's Crawfish, not to be confused with the much fancier Jake's Grill, which is about 2 blocks away in downtown. Both were around our boutique-y and ultra hip lodgings, Ace Hotel. Jake's Crawfish felt a little bit like walking in to a Steak n' Ale, but the food was still pretty good. We, once again, had oysters, trying 6 Sunset Beach (my favorite) and 6 of another kind the waitress picked, which were a little too briny for me. Our second dish was a Dungeness crab cocktail, which was only okay due to the coleslaw-type preparation. I much prefer an order of crab claws, but they were a little out of our price range. We then had a cup of Jake's Famous Clam Chowder, which is cream based unlike the tomato-based New York Clam Chowder they also offered on the menu. For our main course, we split the braised Halibut that came with mashed potatoes and asparagus. This was by far the best part of the dinner. For dessert we had a hard time choosing between the chocolate bag (pretty much a hollow box of chocolate with berries in and around it) and the Jake's Trio which came with small portions of creme brulee, three berry cobbler, and an extremely dense chocolate cake. All were good, but the cobbler was phenomenal. Personally I wished that we had ordered a huge plate of it instead. When we got the bill, we weren't surprised to learn that we'd easily spent another $100 or so.

http://www.mccormickandschmicks.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=content.display&pageid=96&id=1
(I had no idea until just now that this restaurant is owned by McCormick & Schmicks)

The next morning we got a bit of a late start and had intended to go to Mother's Cafe for breakfast, but discovered once we walked there that they aren't open on Monday's. We asked the concierge at the hotel what they recommended and they sent us to Bijou, which ended up being perfect. I had the pancake special with rhubarb apple compote on top. Now THESE are the the best pancakes I've ever tasted in my entire life (no offense Mom - they weren't in cute shapes like yours!). Chase had an omelet with goat cheddar cheese, which neither of us were aware existed. His was really great too, and neither was too expensive. I think we slid out of here in under $30. Another great thing about this place is that everything is organic, if that's the kind of thing you're into. I'd definitely eat here again and wish they'd open an LA location!

http://portland.citysearch.com/profile/8456458/
(Sorry, no menu)

Unfortunately, that was really the end of our culinary adventure in the Northwest. Now back to LA!