Tag Archives: portland

Ground Breaker Brewing

8 Sep

Blistered Padron PeppersOver Labor Day Weekend, we attended a wedding in Stevenson, Washington for one of my closest friends. After flying into Portland, we decided to grab a bite to eat before making our way across the state border. Thanks to a recommendation from an awesome Gluten-Free Santa Barbara member, we went to Ground Breaker Brewing – an entirely gluten-free brewery and gastropub. We started with the Blistered Padron Peppers which are one of my favorite snacks to munch on. They did not disappoint. I had a really hard time deciding between getting their fried chicken and their pulled pork sandwich since those are things I never get to have. The other white meat won out.

Pulled Pork SandwichThis was as good as it looks. It was served on a New Cascadia roll, a dedicated gluten-free bakery located in Portland. My husband ordered the Squash Tomato Cheese Sandwich.

Squash Tomato Cheese SandwichThe cheese and tomato gave it kind of an eggplant parmigiana taste which was a good, familiar taste. To finish the meal, we split a chocolate chip cookie.

Chocolate Chip CookieOh god this was fantastic. I think it is mandatory that all cookies I have from now on have salt sprinkled on top. Since we were at a gluten-free restaurant AND brewery, it seemed necessary to try their beers.

GF BeersThey had 8 beers on their list which made it hard to pick which ones to try. Therefore, we ordered samples of all of them. My favorite was the Pale Ale, but the IPA No. 5 was a close second. I seriously love the Pacific Northwest. You have amazing gluten-free options and it is so incredibly beautiful. PNW

Old Wives’ Tales

13 Aug

GF PancakesFor breakfast one morning, we headed to the East side of Portland to a place called Old Wives’ Tales. At Old Wives’ Tales, they state that at least 90% of their menu is gluten-free. There, I ordered GF pancakes made from Bob’s Red Mill GF flours. I also had a side GF English Muffin.

GF English MuffinSometimes it is nice to go to a restaurant and to be able to order a bunch of carbs!

Sizzle Pie

13 Aug

GF Cheese PizzaAfter a long afternoon of exploring Powell’s Bookstore, we crossed the street to grab some gluten-free pizza. At Sizzle Pie, we found that not only do they offer a GF crust, but they prepare it on separate surfaces and use different utensils. The crust was thicker than a lot of GF crusts and was very good.

Portland Farmer’s Market

12 Aug

Lemon Poppy Seed CakeOne of the best ideas we had in Portland was to visit the Farmer’s Market on Saturday at Portland State. Almost immediately upon getting there, we spotted the deliciousness above at Gabriel’s Bakery stand. This was a gluten-free lemon poppy seed cake. Thinking that there wouldn’t be too many things for me, we bought it and ate it immediately. It was incredibly good. Once we started walking around some more, we found that almost every stand there had GF options. There were too many gluten-free things! There were numerous GF bakeries, savory hand pies, ice cream sandwiches and more. I couldn’t resist getting a baguette at the New Cascadia stand.

GF BaguetteThis bakery is entirely gluten-free. I ended up snacking on this over the next couple of days. We also saw a Petunia’s stand. Knowing how much we enjoyed our experience there the day before, we decided to try their Salted Caramel Cookie Bar.

Salted Caramel Cookie BarThis did not disappoint as it was the perfect balance of sweet and salty. If you are in Portland on a Saturday you MUST experience this Farmer’s Market… and go hungry!

Verde Cocina

10 Aug

ChilaquilesWhile in Portland, we ate at an entirely gluten-free restaurant called Verde Cocina. Described as having “Northwest Farm-to-Fork Ingredients with a Mexican flair”, the dishes on the brunch menu were a bit healthier than your average Mexican brunch. Everything on their menu comes with seasonal veggies. I ordered the Chilaquiles. This had eggs scrambled with pieces of their handmade corn tortillas and was topped with veggies, white bean garbanzo mash and ranchero salsa. I enjoyed it, but I might have put a little hot sauce on  it for more oomph.

Seres Restaurant and Xiao Chi Bar

8 Aug

Tofu Salad RollsIt is hard to find a Chinese Restaurant that is easy to eat at as a Celiac other than PF Changs. So imagine my excitement to find Seres in Portland. Here, GF items are clearly marked and I found our waitress to be very aware of cross contamination. We started with an order of the Tofu Salad Rolls. Then for our main dish, we split two of the vegetarian dishes. The first was the Dry-Sautéed  String Beans.

Dry-Sautéed  String BeansWords can not describe how wonderful these were. All I know is that I will be thinking about these for a very long time. We also had the Kung Pao Tofu and Vegetables.

Kung Pao Tofu and VegetablesThis dish was also great. Between the two of us, this was plenty of food as this dish was quite hardy.

Petunia’s Pies & Pastries

7 Aug

Rose Test GardenThere are so many beautiful outdoor spaces in Portland. One day we walked to the Rose Test Garden which was massive compared to our Santa Barbara rose garden. Here, there were over 7,000 rose plants. After stopping to smell the roses, we continued to the Japanese Garden.

Portland Japanese GardenKnown as the most authentic Japanese garden outside of Japan, this was also very beautiful. By now we had worked up an appetite so we walked back towards our hotel to think about our next meal. On the way, we just happened to walk by a completely gluten-free and vegan bakery called Petunia’s.

Petunia's BakeryThis place was amazing. After much deliberation, we decided on the Peanut Butter Crispy Bar.

Peanut Butter Crispy BarThis was like a peanut butter rice crispy treat…. how could that ever be bad? There were so many appealing looking things in the case. The bakery itself was really cute too, offering made-to-order coffee beverages and cocktails.

Besaw’s

6 Aug

rosemary-garlic roasted potatoes

We just got back from spending a few days in Portland, Oregon to celebrate my birthday and our wedding anniversary. Holy gluten-free awesomeness. I think Portland is my new favorite place. One morning, we decided to try a place called Besaw’s for breakfast. We shared an order of the rosemary-garlic roasted potatoes with melted gruyere. These were fantastic. I then ordered the gluten-free french toast, because why on earth would I order something else when that was on the menu?

GF French ToastThis was pretty tasty too. They use a bread called Jensen’s which was perfect consistency for the french toast.