Portland Snapshots

Portland favs:

Ava Gene's

Salt and Straw

Mount Hood Hikes

Running up Mount Tabor

Stumptown

Voodoo Doughnuts

Blue Star Doughnuts

Japanese Garden

Tabor Bread

Walk to the top of Kings Heights

Neighborhood: SE Hawthorne

Alder & Co

Powell's Books

Poler Stuff

Pok Pok

Kure Juice Bar

Namu

Lardo

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Salt and Straw

We came home from a long weekend in Portland less than a month ago. After a few weeks back in NYC it feels like a lifetime ago. They were four very happy days.

Portland is beautifully different from New York: kids play in the street, adults leave work at five, stunning gardens spill onto the road, everyone smiles, people say hello, and you can breathe and laugh and not be looked at as if there's something wrong with you. 

However, it turns out we can't quite shake our New York spirit: we decided to spend a good 30 minutes of this mini break in a New York-style line for ice cream. However, the experience inside — both the ice cream and the service, made it totally worth it.

Salt and Straw has a few locations throughout the city (as well as in LA and SF), and on the hot, sunny weekend we were visiting, they all had a line out the door the entire time. A line of locals and tourists waited patiently, helping each other out to preempt what their order was going to be, and discussing the top flavor combination tips.

When you finally reach the front, an ice cream aficionado will talk you through all the options. We had a student from Johns Hopkins university who greeted us, talked to us about our background, family history, life, trip to Portland, and more, before insisting that we sample every flavor. Only then were we allowed to make a decision. I don't mean to sound negative. This was wonderful. We're simply not used to this obsession with making sure you're happy and getting what you want from a girl who I think could quite possibly be the next President. 

After a long tasting, we settled on different combinations. We found a shaded seat outside to perch on and enjoy the creamy chocolate gooey brownie, cinnamon snickerdoodle, honey and lavender, sea salt with caramel ribbons, and other fab combinations, all balanced in a freshly made waffle cone. And of course this was accompanied by a man and his guitar. This is Portland after all.

Salt and Straw, locations throughout Portland. 

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Zahav, Philadelphia

We booked B's birthday weekend away in Philly without checking the reservations at Zahav. Thankfully after a few panicked phone calls between the Zahav reservationist, me, and B, on  a weekday afternoon, we managed to grab the last table for 2 at 9.30pm. The next two weeks were spent dreaming (anticipatory dreaming) of the hummus we would eat by the bowlful on our late Saturday night in Philadelphia.

After a glass of bubbles at the wonderfully old-school The Olde Bar, we strolled around the corner, and joined the line of people hovering in the entrance to Zahav. Cocktails and beer were ordered and we were soon shown to our table. 

Zahav, in case you don't know, is the key to Philadelphia's food scene. Run by Michael Solomonov (yes, he of the same day's doughnuts, and also of Dizengoff, in both New York and Philadelphia), this elegant, always packed-out restaurant is well-known for  a reason: with its semi-open kitchen, and a searing wood-fired oven, where Middle Eastern chandeliers hang from the ceiling, and a long bar is always well-populated, Zahav is the real restaurant deal. The reason why it's hard to get a reservation is because the hummus is often referred to as life-changing. Even David Lebovitz, who wasn't sure it was possible, says so. (Make sure you read his review here!)

So obviously we started with hummus. A huge bowl of the tehina hummus, served with laffa bread, freshy baked in the wood-burning oven. Once B had got over the excitement of having a flatbread bigger than his face, we tore off strips of the warm, fluffy laffa, and dipped it through the creamy, rich, smooth, sleek hummus. It's true, this hummus is life changing. No other hummus will ever be the same again. I think I may have to buy Solomonov's cookbook to get the recipe, but I'm not sure anything I make in my kitchen will ever be as mind-blowing as this was.

After hummus came a few mezze: fried cauliflower with labneh, chives, dill, mint, and garlic; Valley Shepherd haloumi, kataifi, sour cherries, pistachio, and celery; fried kibbe made with bulgar wheat, lamb, beef, spring onion, and tahina. They were all beautiful, balanced, and exploding with flavor from fresh vegetables, dark meats, herbs, spices, and fruits. The haloumi looked so fancy, and was so much tastier than a dish that looks that pretty tends to be: The haloumi molten inside, not chewy or squeaky, and melding wonderfully with the cherries and crunchy pastry. The fried kibbe made any previous kibbe I've ever eaten seem like the most underwhelming disappointment. You just need to look at the cauliflower to know how fabulous that was.

Following that were the dishes simply referred to on the menu as 'Al Ha'esh: Grilled over coals', and served with buttery rice pilaf.  Due to their deeply charred smokiness, these dishes didn't exactly photograph well, but they tasted of campfire, of barbecue, of the meat and vegetables' own subtle flavors made so much more extreme having been cooked slowly and gently just a couple of meters behind us on those flickering flames. We had the sirloin shishlik, and the spiced eggplant with lentils, garlic tehina, harif, and crispy wheat. I am planning another trip to Philly just to eat more hummus and spiced eggplant in the very near future.

With our bill came tiny hazelnut biscuits with a dot of fruit jam on top. I sipped up the last of my Lemonnara cocktail (Jim Beam, muddled mint, fresh lemon, and verbena), and we set out into the warm Philly night, to stroll back to our enormous apartment, and sleep off one of the most perfect meals we've ever had.

Zahav, 237 St James Pl, Philadelphia, PA 19106

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