Portland Spoke – The Official Blog of Travel Portland

After three days in Seattle for my daughter’s volleyball tournament last weekend, it was good to be home. But travel tournaments like these are also nice mini-vacations for our family.

When we travel, we prefer to stay at suite hotels. After the first day, we all need a little space. For friends with family visiting us in Portland, my recommendations are always the Embassy Suites Downtown, Residence Inn Portland Downtown - Riverplace, and Inn at Northrup Station.  (more…)

I had a fantastic meal a couple of weeks ago at Tanuki, a small izakaya in Northwest Portland. Izayaka means something like “place that sells sake,” and the food is served tapas-style in small, shareable portions to accompany your drinks.

I’d been reading about Tanuki, which opened in spring of 2008, and had heard that ordering omakase — chef’s choice — was the way to go. I don’t know a lot about Japanese food, but I’m eager to learn, so I liked the idea of getting recommendations right from the chef — no guessing my way through the menu and no hesitating over items that sounded too foreign to my palate.

Omakase came through in a big way. My friend and I ordered drinks (very interesting sake shandies — sake and ginger beer with a shot of fresh carrot juice) and set a price of $20 each for food. Here’s what we got:

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