SeaPort 2013: Day 5 - Seattle/Portland

Final day in Seattle. We woke up, packed up, and checked out of the Red Lion. We used our final morning as an opportunity to hit up Pike Place Market for any final needs, wants, or desires. For breakfast, we selected Lowell's in the market by recommendation of our tour guide from Sunday. To get our last fill of local salmon, I had the Smoked Salmon Benedict and Jeremy had the House Cured Wild Salmon Lox with herb cream cheese on a bagel. I know what all of you New Yorkers are thinking - apparently, the bagel wasn't even that bad. So, we spent our last morning looking at this:

while eating this:

Not too shabby. We also were able to find this Brooklyn based artist we saw the other day and buy a few pieces Jeremy had been eyeing. Overall, a success. We then made our way to King Street Station to catch the Amtrak to Portland! Onwards and downwards.

We arrive at our funky boutique hotel, glowing with bright colors. The Inn at Northrup Station is in the Northwest, near the Pearl District and the Alphabet District. We think this place must have been some run down motel or something at one point, based on the long narrow hallways and only 3 floors. We have a King Suite which is pretty cool. King bed, couch, coffee table, desk that I am blogging at right now, and kitchen (full sized fridge, dishwasher and stove and stocked with utensils and cookware). While we love a good kitchen that is nicer than our own, we have zero plans to cook since our meals are all planned out - thanks OpenTable! So, we settled in and headed over to Paley's Place next door for dinner. Cute place, in a house type building. We arrived a few minutes before our res so we grabbed a few cocktails at the bar. I randomly went with a dirty martini and Jer got a Manhattan (must have been homesick). Pretty good, pretty good. So we get seated and notice there is no background music playing (unusual if you ask me). Therefore, you can sort of hear bits and pieces of all other 10 tables. Or the ENTIRE conversation of one table across the room. Not that Jeremy isn't interesting, but I kept getting distracted by this one booming voice. It was funny actually because he was at a table with 2 other guys and I swear neither got a word in. This guy was dominating the conversation, very know-it-all. Not to mention I noticed when we walked in that he was wearing a kilt and was bald with a super long beard and mustache. Quite interesting. Oh so the food? Pretty good, nothing crazy. We ordered a plate of 3 charcuterie to start: bacon wrapped pork and prune terrine, pork liver and pistachio pâté, and beef tongue with horseradish cream. This plate was delicious and the highlight of the meal (and the only pic I managed to take). 

For our entrees, we split a half order of Crispy Sweetbreads with herbed spätzle, chestnuts & mushrooms. It came as fried chunks of sweetbreads and the rest on the side. It was definitely crispy, but not my favorite rendition of sweetbreads. Then we dug into a full order of the Soft Duck Raviolo with mushrooms, asparagus, parmesan, and 30-Year aged balsamic. This was the most interesting ravioli we've ever seen. There was a very slightly cooked whole egg yolk under the top of the ravioli with the mushroom/parm mixture rolled up surrounding it. It came with 2 and each were huge. Very good, kinda weird, but interesting to say the least. Overall, we enjoyed our meal, but noted it is a big overpriced for what it is. However it was convenient and we were to take a quick walk down 21st Ave, which is a happening street in the neighborhood, and grab a couple beers at a dive called 21st Avenue Bar & Grill. Just some good ol' Portland people watching here! A nice night cap for our first evening in Portland.