Hey everyone! As you may know, Lyle and I recently went to Portland, Oregon to celebrate 5 years of getting on each other's nerves. I kid, I kid. In all seriousness, we were super excited to visit this city for this special time.

Lyle had been only once before to play a show six years back and this was my first time visiting. Of course, throughout my planning process (I say "my" because Lyle decides he likes to leave the planning up to me) I had researched all things Portland to do, see and eat. That being said, I decided to do things a little differently with my blogposts of the trip. Instead of telling you about our trip day by day, I figured I would break it down to these 3 main points. Let's get today's post started with places to eat and grab a drink in the city!

*Disclaimer: Not a food critic WHATSOEVER. Just my opinions of some places we stopped at.*

Let's start off with breakfast. I'm not much of a breakfast person, but every once in a while I crave a good meal in the morning. The first place we visited was Pine State Biscuits in the Alberta Arts District. Holy cow, so amazing. Lyle and I both ordered "The Reggie" which was a chicken sandwich topped with cheese, bacon and gravy. YEAH, I KNOW. When I got my plate, I had no idea where to start with it. I cut into the sandwich, took my first bite and died a little. It was so delicious, so full of flavor. I highly suggest stopping by for breakfast if chicken sandwiches are your thing! Ps, the line was out the door when we were on our way out. If that doesn't scream "Eat here!", I don't know what will.

The second place we stopped at was called Stella Taco. Now, this place caught my attention on Yelp! because they claimed on their website to be Austin style tacos in the Northwest. I was pretty surprised to see anything Texas related this far north. Although, we did see quite a few Texas license plates there, no surprise. The restaurant had some "meh" reviews so at first I decided against trying it out. Lyle finally said we should just check it and see if it was good.

Walking in, I almost felt like I was back in Texas. There was a giant mural on the wall spelling out "Greetings from Stella" with Austin scenery in the background. I ordered potato, egg and cheese tacos that also came with BBQ sauce and avocado. I decided to 86 the BBQ sauce and keep the avocado. Lyle ordered brisket and egg tacos. Overall consensus: 10/10 would recommend. Nothing compares to good ol' Tex-Mex, but it was delicious and definitely worth a try!

During our time in Portland, we never really ate lunch. We usually stuffed ourselves with a good breakfast so that we could last until dinner. However, I feel as though our dinner options could work for lunch as well. Even though we stopped at the food trucks for dinner, I figured I would throw this one into the "lunch" category because if you're in the downtown area, there are plenty of food trucks to choose from to grab a quick bite for lunch.

The place we chose to eat at was called Chocolate Authentic Mexican Bistro. I'm not sure why I keep trying to trust Mexican food this far from Texas but I do. I ordered a burrito and was pretty disappointed with it. I don't really care for frijoles, pero like, my burrito came loaded with them (and it didn't say on the menu either). Lyle ordered some classic carnitas street tacos and was overall satisfied with them.

I'm not saying you have to try this place or don't try this place. You can give it a shot for yourself and see how you feel! Or, like I said, try one of the many food truck options downtown.

After adventuring around the Oregon coast, we were in the mood for some good BBQ. We headed back to the city and dropped in at a restaurant called Reverend's BBQ. I had actually found out about this restaurant through Instagram! I think our eyes were bigger than our stomach this evening because we definitely ordered too much food for just the two of us.

The brisket was super delicious. It was full of flavor and really tender. The pork ribs were just as tasty and the meat practically fell off the bone, which is always good! I had ordered the sausage and it came with 3 different flavors. Sadly, I can't remember them right now, but I do remember they were mild, medium and spicy. I personally didn't care for the spicy one, but the other two flavors were delicious. Lyle, being the chicken lover he is, had to order the fried chicken. According to him and his sophisticated palate, the fried chicken had a unique combination of spices and was overall very tasty.


Last but not least, the mac and cheese. To say I love mac and cheese would be an understatement. I could eat it everyday, if there were no consequences. Before this sounds like we went here solely for the mac and cheese, let me just say that it was delicious. A+ for creaminess and the added bonus of crushed up BBQ chips on top. I probably would revisit JUST for that though. *Drools*