corked or screwed?
t says: By no means an “old” debate, I have recently reconsidered where I stand on the issue of real corks vs. screw-tops. For those who are unaware, the traditional enclosure for bottles of wine has long been cork. The problem, however, is that cork is not the most fool-proof enclosure, as there are countless cases of compromised corks and therefore compromised wine. We here at adsz have written about near-misses as well as straight-up failures of cork. I’d guess (as I have no numbers to substantiate the claim) that the two biggest problems with corks are that they can dry out (and shrink, therefore allowing air to seep into the wine – n.b. this does not lead to a “corked” wine) and that they are prone to contamination with TCA (which does lead to “corked” wine). Screw tops (and other synthetic enclosures) are have less problems with this [if any]. So why put up with corks? The two most common reasons:
1) The tradition/ceremony/romance of removing a cork would be reduced to an action we frequently perform on bottles of soda.
2) Theoretically, the synthetic enclosures would “allow in less oxygen”, therefore preventing the long-term aging/maturation of wine.
While point 1 is irrefutable (as it’s an opinion), I feel that there remains plenty of wine ceremony with screw-tops, like decanting, swirling, sniffing, etc. Thus, I really only favored corks because I thought that there was real “fact” to back up point 2. As you can see in the hyperlinked post, the author (like many authors out there – this one just happened to pop up on google first) kind of admits that it’s controversial but then strongly states that screw-topped wines would “never” be better with age. Here, let me copy-paste for you:
other person says: “Although some may argue with this, I do not believe that a bottle of wine with a screw top is going to improve sitting in your wine cellar for a of couple years. It will taste the same as the day you stuck it in the cellar or perhaps worse, but never better. No oxygen is going to pass through a screw top so those subtle aging characteristics produced by a cork are not going to take place. Corks breathe, screw tops to not. I am not recommending that you shy away from purchasing wine with screw tops but that you are aware that these wines are to drink now. When you purchase wine that comes with a screw top, be sure to drink it within a year.”
back to t: And, given that wine snobs (myself included) tend to be a strongly opinionated bunch (and tend to voice their opinions loudly … especially after a glass of wine), it’s easy to see how such hypotheses and statements about the shortcomings of screw-tops are propagated …
BUT, then I started reading anecdotes like these:
https://www.cellartracker.com/new/event.asp?iEvent=13650
http://amateurgastronomer.com/index/screw-top-tasting/
http://www.atarangi.co.nz/cellaring-guide.html (at the very bottom)
And now … I’m left wondering who to believe! On one side, the pro-cork people have “logic” … but they also require the use of “assumptions” (e.g. assuming that air entry via the cork is the most critical component for proper wine aging). On the other side, the pro-screw people (that sounds weird …) have only some anecdotes and a couple [rather limited] studies suggestive of no difference between the two in terms of taste (and maybe some hints of the possibility of superiority for the screwtop).
The scientist in me (having awoken after a 1.5 year slumber) feels that there just isn’t enough data to take a side … yet. It is pretty tempting to go pro-screw-top, but they’re going to need some better-controlled studies if they want to conclude that screw-tops are not worse than cork (“the absence of proof should never be considered proof of absence”). Furthermore, the scientist in me is quite furious at the wine snob in me for being pro-cork for as long as I have, accepting and spreading the explanation as “reasonable”, “logical”, and even “truth” without the numbers to back it up; it’s dangerous and could lead to misinformation that could have disastrous effects had this been a real-life issue rather than something as frivolous as wine. As for the wine snob in me – he’s crying after having been verbally abused for the duration of me writing this post.
Conclusion: I’m “retracting” my former statements made to friends and family about the superiority of cork … pending further evaluation by UC Davis and other such impartial investigators. May the best enclosure win. And yes, this means that if I meet the wine-of-my-life tomorrow, I will buy it … regardless of its silly-looking screw-top. I’m a changed man.
The Oregon Trail: Eateries (cont’d)
t says: And to complete the whirlwind recap of Oregon dining, here we go …
Wine Country Day 3 – Dinner: Thistle. Now, this restaurant is quite a controversial topic in wine country. Our BnB proprietors very clearly didn’t like the place – the chef had a reputation of being “Mr. Grumpy-pants”, and the format of the restaurant is a little too “hip”/”cool” for Oregon. For example, when we walked in, you’re told by the hostess/waitress/server that the menu is on the board and that that’s the only place it’s written (Little Fish has a very similar tactic). On one hand, the menu seemed pretty good:
Thistle’s menu
But on the other hand, you can’t see the menu from every seat in the restaurant (actually, I’d say that less than half the seats in the restaurant are even in the same room as the menu!) … and this is why their execution of the chalkboard menu is ultimately a fail! As the evening progressed, a crowd of people started to build, as patrons had to stand in the room we were eating in (i.e. I picked a seat right underneath the menu so as not to have to rely on memory), make up their minds, memorize their choices, and then return to their seats.
Continuing with Thistle weirdness …
So I got up to wash my hands before eating. I apparently looked lost (I was), so the bartender gave me directions … but then he warned me … “Yeah, the lights don’t work in there – don’t worry – there’s candles.” I thought, “that’s weird”. And then I walked in:
bathroom by candlelight
- So then I knew it was weird. I mean this has to be some kind of violation. You can’t see it in the above picture, but that bar next to the toilet that people should rely on for balance in case they’re elderly or handicapped (or happen to fall in because someone left the seat up) – there’s candles on that, too. I’m all for ambience – trust me – but I just don’t see how anyone needs to be put in a romantic mood to void/evacuate/wash. Kinda weird …
On to the food – it wasn’t bad! Actually – it was pretty good – technically the best that we had in Willamette Valley. Fish cookery was top notch. Gnocchi were soft and pillowy. Good stuff. g was especially happy because for all of the negative comments we had read about the chef, we found that his food was tasty. We did feel, however, that the chef might be a little “green”. It seems like he has a lot of ideas (i.e. ingredients) that he desperately wants to put on each and every plate without putting enough thought into how the diner would approach them. As a result, I found myself hunting/dissecting with my fork and knife to ensure that every bite had at least some of each of the components, as I imagined that’s how chef imagined they’d go together. A prime example was the fish dish:
there’s just too many (at least 7) components! … (but each one is cooked VERY nicely)
I think my favorite of the evening was:
simple appetizer = potato + bacon + kale + egg + mustard
We would consider going back to Thistle again, but there are other places in Wine Country that we’d try first. Cuvee, Recipe, and The Painted Lady come to mind immediately (oh, and the restaurant in the Allison and the new one in the Inn at Red Hills).
Oregon Day 4: Mixing it up …
So we decided to visit Columbia River Gorge before settling in Portland. It’s true that you kind of pass right by Portland to get to the Gorge from Wine Country, however, we felt that we just needed to visit more of Oregon. It was great! The views were spectacular, and had g and I been more “into” water sports and/or hiking, I’m sure we could have spent even more time there. For us, we were content with the pretty surroundings and the waterfalls.
Multnomah Falls is so huge we couldn’t fit more than half of it in any one picture …
Additionally, there are lots of great spots to picnic. We stopped at a Target to pick up a corkscrew and acrylic tumbler so that we could drink some rose at the Gorge – check it:
lemon zest chevre (Abbey Road Farms) + baguette (Red Hills Market) + Domaine Drouhin rose (in a $2 Target tumbler)
This lunch was AWESOME.
After arriving and getting situated in Portland (and seeing some sights – like Powell’s City of Books), g and I prepared for our first [and only] dinner in Portland: Le Pigeon.
We had reservations to eat at 7:30 but were starving by 5:30. So we “chanced it” and just showed up, hoping to nail one of the chef’s counter seats that are available to walk-ins only (only 10 or so seats available, first-come-first-served). We were in luck – we were the last two that fit! Whoopie!
Ok – let’s slow things down now – Le Pigeon deserves the blow-by-blow …
t’s app: grilled lamb tongue “salad”
So, the lamb tongue wasn’t presented in exactly the way I thought. I thought that a hunk of tongue was going to be cooked slow and then grilled at the last second. Instead, this was fine slices of meat mixed with other interesting salad-like ingredients. Ultimately everything did taste great, but I think people who go ga-ga for this dish are just falling for the hype of “eating tongue”, to which I am no stranger (and this didn’t taste particularly lamby, either). And, unfortunately, it paled in comparison to g’s app …
g’s app: rabbit pot pie (topped with hot mustard ice cream) + rabbit heart “salad”
Holycrapballsthiswasamazing. First off, That pot pie totally killed it. As much as I raved about Alla Spina’s Pig Pot Pie, this is an order of magnitude better. Seriously. The succulent rabbit meat (and plenty of it), the ice cream (g loves hot mustard), and I even think there was a little bit of foie hiding in there … heaven. And then there was that mix of rabbit heart and mustard and something sweet/fruity-tasting (?tamarind?) and unidentifiable other “stuff”. And then it happened: I was brought to a pause – you know – one of those times when you want to just close your eyes and let your brain and mouth savor every flavor of the symphony before you. It was the best dish I had had in a long time. And the surprise/novelty of it reminded me a bit of the old Talula’s Table Bryan Sikora (not to be confused with the new a.kitchen Sikora). I did not see that one coming … Needless to say, g won Battle Appetizer (lamb tongue never stood a chance).
For mains, I went for the hunk of meat:
t’s main: boeuf bourgignon
I thought that I had this one all locked up. The meat was fall-apart tender and deeply penetrated with the uber-oomphy braising liquid. The onions and potatoes were so deeply flavored that they barely resembled their pre-cooked form. And yes, even the carrots were scrumptious. It was so classically done and so perfectly executed that team t was going to steamroll team g for sure … or so I thought …
g’s main: chicken … kinda
Ok … so I labeled the above photo “chicken”. And yes, it was a plate that featured chicken. But don’t be fooled. This was no ordinary chicken. This chicken was possessed by the devil … because clearly only Beezlebub would think of lobster-ifying chicken. That’s right – lobster chicken. Now, g confesses that she ordered it because she wanted me to have the beef (I “called it” first) – she only went for the chicken because I had told her that some Yelpers said it was delicious. They. were. not. lying. You put a piece of white chicken (stuffed with lobster) in your mouth and it’s so vividly lobster that you swear it was a piece of lobster. And then, as you bite down, you get the firmness of chicken which while weird at first is actually kind of a well-matched texture for the power of the lobster. Underneath, there’s dark meat mixed with lobster pieces and that ridiculous sauce (and peas … g loves peas). Now, g admits that this technically was not the “best” chicken she ever had in terms of chicken cookery (i.e. the chicken alone wasn’t particularly tender or particularly juicy – but done well enough), but she feels that it’s probably a contender for the best “chicken dish” she’s ever had when it comes to flavor – and I’m totally with her. This chicken – this silly bird that was screwed around with to taste like lobster – was out of control. As good as my beef was (and as impressive as the picture of the beef was) and as confident I was that “cow beats chicken” is as true/fact/dogma as “rock beats scissors”, g’s chicken, with the power of lobster, slayed my cow. Damnit. I was 0-2 this meal (and she let me have first pick!) On to desserts to see if I could pick up at least 1 victory to restore team morale …
t’s dessert: creme brulee and malt pot de creme
My dessert wasn’t very fussy. I was feeling kind of full, so I wanted some lighter flavors that went down smoothly. And, after watching chef torch off a creme brulee (after all, we did have prime seats), I decided that that’s what I wanted. And indeed everything was delicious! The textures, temperatures, and flavors were all spot on …
but g showed me no mercy …
g’s dessert: “carrot cake”
I was actually surprised g ordered dessert. Usually, she foregoes dessert and takes a bite of mine. But not this day. This day, she annihilated me 3-0. Okay. Look at that carrot cake. That is clearly NOT a “carrot cake” as the menu suggested. It was like bringing a gun to a knife-fight. Forget “gun” – try rocket launcher. First off, let’s tackle the obvious component: the carrot cake. This carrot cake was crazy. Now, I’ve had some darn good carrot cakes in the past (shout-out to w!), but this was super moist and super soft, but somehow not “spongy”, and it boasted carrot and spice flavors, but no actual carrot particles were visible. The cream cheese icing wasn’t over-bearingly sweet or cream-cheesy, with just the right amount of viscosity. I’m pretty sure those nuts were toasted because there’s no way they could have had the flavors they had otherwise. The chamomile ice cream – ok – that was the one thing on the dish that was “normal” – a nice mild flavor to provide some background for the other fireworks. Now let’s talk about the ridiculous … Those ribbon thingees are shavings of yellow, orange, and purple carrot that had been treated in such a manner that they were essentially like those Listerine pocket strips … except that they tasted of carrot. Those yellow raisins were rehydrated in Lord-knows-what, but had this mix of sweetness and a little bit of sour/tart punch. And then there’s that little cube of orange … carrot, right? WRONG. That was some sort of gelatin substance that was cut into cubes (think textured like panna cotta) so it would look like carrot, but have this wonderful cross of creamy and carroty and sweet. Someone had a lot of fun crafting this dessert … and we had even more fun eating it.
As you can see, Le Pigeon serves some wonderful food. At “baseline” (i.e. everything I ordered), the food is “delicious” and superbly executed. But at the extreme (i.e. everything g ordered), it’s whimsical and surprising (and delicious and superbly executed). g wants to do an FTC trip to Oregon so that we can do up the wineries and go to Le Pigeon. Who knows – maybe after reading this post, the usual suspects will begin thinking about it … Whadya say – International Pinot Noir Celebration in July 2013?
Day 5 – Finishing off Portland …
Yes … this has been a very long post. But give me just a few more pictures to wrap up our trip (rapid fire – I promise!):
I started off the day by bringing some Voodoo Donuts back to the hotel … yea … I know it’s a tourist trap
wait for it …
raspberry jelly, lemon cruller, buttermilk, and Memphis Mafia (i.e. chocolate, caramel, peanut butter, all on fried fritter dough)
Voodoo was good, but I think their “shtick” is just doing “over-the-top” donuts (they have a lot more like the Memphis Mafia pictured above). I kind of prefer FedNuts super-flavor-packed donuts to these, but I will say that Voodoo has a better actual “donut matter” (Fednuts are a little too cakey for me).
We did Bunk Sandwiches takeout for lunch – they’ve received a ton of accolades and have been on DDD – I know it’s a tourist trap, too …
meatball sandwich – those were some darn solid meatballs and the sauce was actually pretty good (with some spice) … but I know that g’s meatballs could wreck Bunk’s … just sayin …
chicken salad – good components around the chicken salad, but the salad itself was only “meh” – Rotisseur might be able to take ‘em …
And that’s it!
We boarded a plane with our wine, prayed that we (and the wine) would arrive safely in PHL, and voila! Here we are!
Overall, it was a fantastic trip – g was glad she did it! (Her original attitude was “Oregon? Who goes to Oregon for vacation?”). To those who’ve “done” California, Oregon is a great trip with great wines and a slower/nicer attitude. The food might not be as polished/famous as Napa’s, but it’s also a helluvalot cheaper (the wines are, too!). Portland is an interesting city and worth a visit (lots of cool tattoos), but we can’t justify any more than 2 days (g says: When we go back to Oregon, we’re only going to stay in Portland for the food – no need for me to see anything else.) – we probably would have spent more time in the Gorge had we had the time.
Waiting for noon …
t says:. We’re hanging out at the shore. The weather is beautiful. The only thing missing:
But we will … Right as soon as it’s no longer “morning”.
The Oregon Trail: Eateries
t says: And now, let’s roll the picture reel – it’s time to see some Oregon food.
Wine Country Day 1 – Lunch: Red Hills Market. This was a cute little market that sold everything from meats, breads, and cheeses to wines, coffees, and touristy nick-knacks. They do some pretty good desserts, including the best macaroon I’ve ever had (I didn’t take a picture of it because by the time I thought to do so, I had already consumed the entire macaroon). It’s the perfect place for a first bite after a tired journey or to pick up some picnic necessities. Oh – I forgot to mention the delicious artisanal sandwiches:
red hills market roast beef
Wine Country Day 1 – Dinner: <Picnic> Famous 3rd Street Pizza. We didn’t take a pic of the place or the pizza because it was pretty standard fare – nothing special. We would have done something awesomer, but Mondays in Oregon Wine Country are tough – it’s REALLY hard to find open restaurants (either that or we just suck at looking for them). We took a pizza back to Abbey Road Farms BnB and enjoyed the view over a slice of pie. Ahhhhhh, heaven.
Wine Country Day 2 – Lunch: The Horse Radish. Located in downtown Carlton (this is a joke), this is a great little sandwich-centric place for lunch. Because it was called “the Horse Radish”, g insisted that we order a dish containing the condiment … meaning that we again had roast beef:
not as “sexy” as Red Hills Market, but more filling (only half is pictured above)
Oregon cheese trio and some fig jam
Overall, the food was satisfactory and the price was right. Not bad!
Wine Country Day 2 – Dinner: We had another outdoor picnic, but this time, we’re going to play a game where you guess what we ate after a long day of wine tasting …
The large box had a salad (yawn), while the other components of super-awesome outdoor meal are …
… Oregon Dungeness crab lasagna …
… papperdelle bolognese …
… cupcakes (peanut butter and chocolate, red velvet, raspberry filled, and caramel filled) …
… and a beautiful view!
As you could probably guess from my strong words in the last post, the wine was the best part of this meal. It was just a wonderful outdoor drinking wine. The food was pretty good, but we have to admit that for the hype that Nick’s Italian Cafe gets, you’d think that this was going to be the best Italian food ever. It wasn’t. (g suggests: It wasn’t bad, but maybe they just don’t have a lot of great Italian places around here to compare it to.) I agree – Osteria would reduce the long-time “establishment” of Nick’s to a nothing more than a faded memory within a single summer. The cupcakes a similar story – they weren’t bad, but it’s similar to any old cupcakery you can find in Philly.
Wine Country Day 3 – Lunch: Dundee Bistro. This place rocks. Seriously. The food is well-prepared and often contains little tidbits of novelty to wake you up from a wine-tasting-induced-siesta. The by-the-glass wine list is impressive. The hipster waiters are nice enough, so that wasn’t a problem. I’d say that if you want a sit-down lunch, this place is a no-brainer.
pasta carbonara … but the pasta is kinda like ramen noodles …
French Fries (truffled) + golden beet salad with curried apples
Wine Country Day 3 – Dinner … to be continued …
best. news. ever.
t says: So, after our “best. mail. ever.” post, I have often wondered what would come along and be even awesomer than having a Han Dynasty closer to my workplace … and now I have it: FedNuts moving closer to me. It’s on like Donkey Kong.
a says: You lucky ______s …
The Oregon Trail: Outbound Flight and Digs
t says: g and I have just returned from our trip to Oregon and it was awesome! We’ve decided to recount some of our voyage here for you because there was a ton of fun to be had, including good food, good wine, and lots of stories. Rather than give you the day-by-day, I’m going to group together some of the like experiences so that it doesn’t seem like we did the same thing every day (e.g. wake up, eat, drink, eat, drink, eat, drink, sleep). Plus, it’ll help us remember what made certain attractions different from others (e.g. the differences between wineries, restaurants, etc).
We started our trip to PDX with a 6am flight to Newark. That’s right: our destination was Portland, but we had to fly east to Newark first for a 1-hr layover, and then fly directly to PDX. This is humorous/stupid for a few reasons. The first is that it’s kind of a waste of time to put up with air travel for such a short commute; I’d bet we’d spend more time boarding and de-boarding the plane than actually in the air. Furthermore, I’d also be willing to bet that a bus would get us to the Newark airport faster at 6am. The second bit of humor/stupidity is the cost. Direct flights from PHL to PDX are in excess of $800, while the above one-stop flight was below $300. I tried to get crafty and find some way to drive to Newark the morning for a flight directly to PDX … and found that that, too, costs over $800. I contemplated just booking the PHL –> Newark –> PDX flight and just catching the Newark–>PDX leg, but feared that they might cancel our seats or something if we didn’t show up in PHL … Alas, we just “went with it” and flew from PHL to PDX via Newark … leading us to the last bit of funny … g and I were super-psyched that we were in seats 8A and 8B for the first leg, because that’d mean that we’d be towards the front of the plane, so we’d have an opportunity to de-board quickly at Newark so we could scramble to our next gate. Turns out that the plane only had 9 rows. Nine rows! This plane was t-i-n-y (e.g. I knew every seat was full because I could easily SEE every seat). It was so tiny that ALL wheely luggage carry-ons had to be checked. As a matter of fact, it was SO tiny that it still had real-deal, legit propellers on the wings! Propellers! Had our phones been on, we would have provided you with a pic!
Fortunately, everything went off without a hitch. We landed in Newark and caught our flight to PDX. At around 4 hours or so, we had confirmation that we were indeed heading west, as this is what the window showed:
pretty mountain!
Now, upon landing in PDX, we were faced with our first real decision: which compact rental car to choose? There was a grey Chevy Aveo. And a yellow Fiat. I was rooting for the Fiat. g was rooting for any car that wasn’t yellow. Conclusion: Chevy Aveo won. I guess we’ll just have to Fiat another time … (we would have taken a picture, however, the dude right behind us in line HAD to go with the Fiat because there was no other compact car available after we took the Aveo, and we didn’t want to rub it in his face). As a sidenote, g admits that had the Fiat been red, she would have done it in a heartbeat.
After this, there was some wine-tasting and some eating, but we’ll get to those in a future posts …
We eventually checked in to our overnight accommodations for the wine country leg of the trip. We chose Abbey Road Farms Bed and Breakfast!
the entrance to Abbey Road Farm
metal chicken sculptures hiding amongst the shade to greet guests
and there’s REAL chickens, too!
see! real live chickens!
the guest rooms are IN these converted silos!
Ok, so the above pic needs some explaining. The proprietors had these old grain silos turned into rooms – and they’re all connected to a common foyer. When we told lc about this, she wasted no time in sharing her opinion that this was insanely gimicky but perfect because there’s a sucker born every minute (thus implying that g and I are suckers). That’s ok lc – we know that you’re just jealous that YOU didn’t get to stay in grain silos. Now, we didn’t take any pictures of our room (plenty of pictures on their kind-of-dated website), but it was well-appointed with a good amount of space, heated floors, jacuzzi tubs, and extraordinarily comfy beds (seriously – it’s the first time we’ve ever had no complaints about beds while traveling). It was actually nice and very clean. Also, the view from our room (the Alpine Room, which apparently has the best view) was pretty frickin’ awesome:
alpine room view on a clear day (and you can see the patio we used for dining) – picturesque vineyards stretch out to the left, but we couldn’t fit them in the picture …
the sunrise in the morning (check out the fog)
So now you must be wondering: “What’s ‘the deal’ with Abbey Road farm?” There’s a farm and there’s a BnB. Together. It’s a pretty cute place! The farm is small but legit (it has chickens, alpacas, llamas, sheep – all roaming about certain sections of the land). The farm’s proprietors, John and Judi, are a super-sweet couple who just really wanted to own a farm and found that they had the means to do so … and so they did! From what we gathered, John (a very nice man) is full of ideals and further allowed to live out those ideals by virtue of having made a crap-ton of money in Las Vegas (something to do with insurance companies and hotel management). However he attained the funds to buy the place, we don’t care, because the experience was absolutely wonderful. We do want to note that John admits that he runs a “Gucci farm” – meaning that while he and his wife have done their best to learn and perform the activities necessary for farming, they do enlist the help of others to make sure things are done properly. I’m not sure who’s idea the BnB side of the property came from, but however it came to be, it’s very well executed. The rooms had everything we needed, the breakfasts were tasty and filling, the price was reasonable, and it was so pretty/peaceful that we often just brought back food to the BnB to eat on that patio while gazing into the distance (it was so much better than staying at a room in some hotel in one of the tiny towns like Dundee or McMinnville). As a sidenote, this property is also next to Trappist Abbey, which John somehow helped to become a perpetually preserved/conserved land, so no matter now commercial Oregon becomes due to the wine trade, he’ll always have trees in his back yard. Brilliant! More sidenotes: they make their own goat’s milk cheese (the lemon zest chevre is AWESOME), and John’s currently trying to bring a farmer’s market to the property for locals and foodies to enjoy.
Trust us: we’d happily go back to Abbey Road Farms in the future – it’s the perfect accommodation for visiting wine country. We hope they’ll still be there next time!
We did send some time in Portland on our trip as well, requiring a one-night stay in one of the city’s many hotels. We got a great deal on The Nines using Expedia so we jumped on it. Here’s the rundown:
–The Good: Super-clean. The staff is super-uber-nice/helpful/kind – it’s like they are trying their hardest to give the impression that they’re the Ritz or something – we give them an A+ for effort. There’s a pretty fancy-looking restaurant in there – we wouldn’t recommend it when there are so many restaurants with such high praises in Portland, but it’s nice to know that there’s a back-up plan.
–The Bad: Their logo, which is apparently a wonkified number “9″ is pretty stupid-looking. It’s ok, g and I turned all of the items in our room with that logo (e.g. coasters, pads of paper) upside-down, so they resembled the letter “G” instead. How fitting. They’re also trying way too hard to be chic – resorting to a lot of “first year in art school” type pictures/paintings/thingamajigs hanging on the walls to give them a more “modern”/”hip”/”cool” aesthetic – we weren’t fooled by their faux coolness.
–The Scary/Hilarious: After returning from dinner, we walked into our hotel room only to find that the lights were on, the TV was on, and my luggage was wide open with my clothes all strewn about. My first thought: “HOLY CRAP – WE’VE BEEN ROBBED!!” – my mind started racing through the valuables we had with us (i.e. laptop, iPad, wine, g’s clothes). It turns out that we were not robbed, rather, turndown service had happened, which involves turning on the nightstand lights and turning the TV to some sort of classical music station for ambience. And the luggage … that was just me forgetting to put it away before we left for dinner (or as g would put it: “just being a slob”). g apparently at no point thought we had been robbed and automatically assumed it was turndown service. Oops.
–The Summary: The Nines is a great hotel in a good downtown location, but it does isolate you from the real “culture” or Portland (i.e. anything seen in the tv series Portlandia). Great restaurants are to the east and the parks are to the west, so it’s kind of in the middle of where you want to go to do things, however, it’s close to Voodoo Donuts and Stumptown Coffee and Powell’s City of Books so it’s not like you’re in the middle of nowhere. I feel that if we had to go to Portland, we’d do The Nines again if we found it at a sale price (it’s very expensive otherwise).
Well, that’s it for now – stay tuned for the next two installments: the wine, and the food.
