greg and I decided to head out for a little taste of portland today...it all started around noon when we headed to lunch a la voodoo, with some of our favorite coffee of course. yes...donuts for lunch. as we were enduldging at an outdoor table a man was enjoying a cup of coffee, newspaper and cigarette and the smell of the smoke almost felt like it fit. almost. I had to write that because I think that is the only time - ever - that I've actually kind of accepted the smell of cigarette smoke. well, aside the time when I was 13 and thought, for about an hour, that it would be cool to smoke cigarettes.
after lunch we decided to take advantage of the sugar caffeine high and went to shop for an outdoor table...finally. we've been putting off this chore for about 2 years now, but, we're hosting a few little parties in july so we've got ourselves a deadline. anyway, we found one, fell in love and found out that it won't arrive at our house until september. so, we then came up with the brilliant idea to go to ikea and find a cheaper folding card-type table that we can use for our july festivities until our new table arrives. it's always good to have a folding table around...right? you can just cover it with a great vintage linen and call it a day. it's not always good to go to ikea on a sunday afternoon...we should have stopped while we were ahead. this is only like our second time to the portland ikea and each time we go we find ourselves walking in circles overwhelmed and burnt out by the time we get around to finding what it is that we're looking for that we can't wait to get out of there and go have a beer. of course, ikea didn't have what we were looking for so we left empty handed, which, is probably a good thing in the end.
we decided end the day at one of our favorite portland eats. pho van (pronounced "fa vahn") has like three or four locations and the one out on s.e. 82nd is by far the best and the most authentic. I believe it's the only one that serves our favorite dish to share (well, second favorite to the pho ga - vietnamese chicken - soup for me). 
it's a whole crispy fish served with all kinds of basil, mint, pineapple, sprouts, cilantro that you can pull apart and roll up in rice paper with some tasty sauce and enjoy. I especially enjoyed it today with my ice cold vietnamese beer. yum!
4 comments:
Sometimes I feel like cattle being herded through Ikea - especially on the weekends! And all of those strollers. I totally know what you mean! :o)
Mmmmm - Pho Van! My friend Betsy finally took me to that exact one - it's her favorite one as well. Loved it!!! Sounds like a wonderful Sunday!
Mmmm, that does look good. Sounds like a lovely day!
mmm pho ga is one of my favorites at our local spot. especially when i am on the verge of a head cold- always fixes me right up!
thanks for the comments all!!
heidi! oh, greg and I loooove pho van...we should all go one of these days! :)
angie...it was a great day filled with great food and afternoon sunshine!
oh my gosh nessie, i'm right there with you. just thinking of that soup makes me feel better!
xxo!
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