Portland Spoke – The Official Blog of Travel Portland – Travel Portland's Staff Blog

With our busy lives, it often seems like there’s never enough time to take in many arts and culture offerings. However, I made a pledge this year that I would make the effort to savor all that Portland has to offer with our live music, theater and arts scene.

I recently enjoyed an amazing performance of (I am Still) The Duchess of Malfi at Artists Repertory Theatre. It was amazing how much one night of live performance did for my appetite to see even more!

You have the chance to see live performances too … and for a discount! The Blah-Buster promotion has just begun and runs through March 31. Enjoy two-for-one tickets to many productions around town, as well as dining discounts to create the ultimate evening!

Bunk Sandwiches' pork belly Cuban sandwich

Seeing that we are in the season of giving thanks, I would like to say “thank you” for the gift that gives year-round: the American Burrito, also known as the sandwich. The sandwich is enjoying a long-overdue renaissance in Portland thanks to a few key players who have upped the ante on three very important sandwich metrics: abundance, variety and scrumptiousness. The subject is certainly open to debate, but this sandwich aficionado thinks the following purveyors of tasty hand-held meals have helped fill a void that had been vacant for too longs.

Enter into the ring: Meat Cheese Bread, with a menu that favors locally sourced ingredients; Bunk Sandwiches, where creative artistry keeps you coming back for more; and Kenny and Zuke’s, offering deli-style fare that is always piled high. Three-handedly, these brick-and-mortar establishments quickly helped raise sandwich awareness in the city.

The bread-based buzz carries through the outdoor scene as well. At the Alder Street food cart pod, Addy’s tasty baguettes are the perfect lunch companion; across the way, Huong’s Vietnamese serves up a bahn mi that will be your new best friend; and, down at Fifth and Stark, Tabor’s schnitzelwich is always ready to tango.

Portland’s sandwich selection has come a long way over the years and is headed in a savory direction — right to my stomach, and for that I am thankful.

For 40 years The Benson Hotel has displayed a “Gingerbread Masterpiece” in the lobby for guests and passersby to admire. Chef Dave Diffendorfer has created the display for the last 17 consecutive years, with fantasy worlds ranging in theme from Santa’s North Pole to an Austrian hillside town to The Benson Hotel itself.  Each year Chef Diffendorfer crafts, molds and carves 100 lbs. of gingerbread and up to 25 lbs. of white chocolate and marzipan into a spectacle to behold.  This year’s display, A Castle in Blue, is one stop to check off your list while shopping or visiting Santa in downtown Portland.  Merry, merry!

Had a great night at one of downtown’s newest restaurants, Mucca Osteria, where Bert and I recently shared a nice pasta dish, samplings of wine and a lovely parade of antipasti from chef Simone Saviano: melon and prosciutto, organic greens, thinly sliced medallions of seared lamb, and an artful stack of heirloom tomatoes with mozzarella.

I’ll leave the full review – and the English translation of the restaurant’s name – to the Portland Mercury. But in a word (or four): It was just right. And it was nicely paired with a post-meal stroll around downtown, window-shopping at Canoe and other West End retailers.

The holiday season is here, and what better way to brighten your spirits than with a Holidate downtown!  Every Thursday evening in December, cross things off your to-do list and have some fun with special discounts, free parking at SmartPark garages until midnight (enter between 4-6 p.m.) and live merry music sponsored by Portland Mall Management, Inc.

Get all the details for each week’s Holidate and make your holidays extra merry and bright!

Photo by Allison Park, via Flickr

As the holidays approach, the grocery store aisles and bar taps around Portland welcome full-bodied seasonal ales to help weather the cold winter months. This year, Widmer Brothers Brewing is back with its BRRR Seasonal Ale and BridgePort Brewing Company will help cure any bah-humbug tendencies with their Ebenezer Ale.

For those looking to sample seasonal ales not sold in stores, Portland’s annual Holiday Ale Fest offers dozens of brews created solely for the festival. Considered the premier winter beer-tasting event on the West Coast, the 16th annual festival will feature beers from more than 40 breweries Nov. 30 through Dec.4, 2011, in Pioneer Courthouse Square. A heated, clear-top tent keeps attendees cozy while allowing for holiday light-viewing in the heart of the city. And, plenty of holiday shopping and dining options are located on adjacent blocks. The festival website features a full list of breweries and their 2011 submissions, ranging from Belgians and barley wines to porters and stouts.

Bring on the holidays – the pop-up shops are back! Four destination shopping experiences, available only in November and December, are now open for business throughout downtown.

Boys’ Fort, a fantastical venue created by two theater designers, offers everything from salvaged wood tables and reclaimed lighting to men’s wallets and women’s bangles. The nonprofit Trillium Artisans helps up-and-coming artisans market their wares, which are all crafted from repurposed materials; check out the upcycled jewelry, toys, garden art and the baby booties made from surplus Pendleton wool. Downtown Artistry offers indie crafts and ceramics (and classes for the DIY shopper) and Saturday Market Annex provides an on-site artisan workshop and a daily central-city complement to Portland Saturday Market on the waterfront. Nearby, don’t miss Portland Design Collective and Crafty Wonderland – former pop-up shops that are now permanent storefronts offering fashion, jewelry and crafts year-round.

Looking for a motherlode of unique gifts? Clear your calendar for Dec. 10-11 when two holiday fairs celebrate Portland’s creative community. Crafty Wonderland’s annual Super Colossal Holiday Sale features more than 200 artisans decking the halls of the Oregon Convention Center with handmade jewelry, toys and housewares. Nearby, the Portland Bazaar launches this year at Sandbox Studio with a curated collection of handcrafted goods by more than 100 vendors. Offerings include books, music, art and (this being Portland) a bicycle-building demonstration. A shuttle will ferry shoppers between the fairs, while food carts will keep intrepid gift-givers fueled and toasting tax-free holiday shopping.

The holiday season just got a little merrier in Downtown Portland with the openings of several new businesses.  Some are local businesses, some are national, but all of them offer tax-free shopping and dining.

Nike Portland: Feel like you’re walking back into your high school gym at the new concept store from Nike, an Oregon-based company.

Via Tribunali: Seattle’s popular wood-fired pizza empire opens its first Portland location on Nov. 15.

Bunk Sandwiches: The third outpost of this beloved Portland sandwich shop is perfect fuel for on-the-go shoppers.

Sephora: Beauty lovers, your time has arrived — Sephora has opened a stand-alone store across from Pioneer Place shopping center.

PDX Pop-Ups: For the third year, temporary stores featuring local designers are swinging open their doors until Dec. 31.

http://downtownportland.org/downtown-events/good-stuff/pdx-pop-up-shops-2011/

We Portlanders relish our warm summer nights. And now we have a new – legal – option for lounging about on the street with a drink in our hands.

On a one-block stretch of Southwest Ankeny Street between Second and Third avenues in Old Town, picnic tables trump pickup trucks as the cobblestone alley has been closed to traffic for the summer.* White lights twinkle and candles flicker as this most European-feeling slice of the city fills with revelers. (more…)

Through the end of August, travelers and locals alike can save on shopping, dining and parking in downtown Portland while also helping the homeless with Compassion Coupons.

Here’s how it works: visit www.downtownportland.org/compassioncoupon for a list of merchants and their deals, including 20% off frozen yogurt at TartBerry and $1 off evening parking at SmartPark. You can print off your favorites, or pull them up on your smartphone with the Forkfly app. Then, for every coupon that is redeemed, $5 is donated to the Bud Clark Commons to help fund a mentor outreach program to provide homeless adults with the services they need.

Other great deals include nearly 50% off custom men’s wedding bands, 2-for-1 Nutcracker tickets, 20% off dinner at Portland Prime, or gifts with purchase at Crafty Wonderland — so start shopping and saving with a do-good deal.