Isabel's Blog

Tag: road trips

Keep Portland weird

September 15, 2014 / / 0 Comments

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While we were on our trip to Seattle, Dave and some of my design friends drove to Portland for a day of fun. I’m not sure what I was expecting (maybe a sketch out of Portlandia?), but it exceeded all expectations. Food was great (Blue Star donuts—best donut I’ve ever had!, Nong’s Khao Man Gai, Pok Pok, Sen Yai, Salt & Straw, Stumptown coffee), public transit cheap ($1?!), attractions fun (Powell’s books, … okay, we didn’t really do much shopping). We did make a few stops at parks, including the top of Mount Tabor, Joseph Woodhill Park, and Ecola State Park. It was so beautiful at Ecola park, I wanted to pause everything.

Chi-town eats

July 15, 2014 / / 0 Comments

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Chicago food photo highlights: Fat Rice for brunch (noodles for brunch! And Macau style egg tarts!), eating at Longman & Eagle three nights in a row, Pilsen for insane amounts of Mexican food at Nuevo Leon,  Bang Bang pie (strawberry short stack and key lime), Leghorn Chicken (pickle brined fried chicken!), Hot Doug’s (foie gras hot dog!!!) and these weird but delicious quail egg with coconut and condensed milk shooters that taste like key lime pie from Slurping Turtle by Takashi Yagihashi (from Top Chef).

One of the first days we also had donut showdown: we bought a bunch of donuts from Donut Vault, Glazed and Infused, and Firecakes and did a blind taste test to see which made the best old fashioned sour cream glazed. Donut Vault was the winner. We had these amazing lemon poppy seed donuts that day. So good. I would go back to Chicago for Donut Vault donuts alone.

Drove to Chicago

July 3, 2014 / / 1 Comment

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Because Dave and I are such patriotic Canadians, we went and spent the Canada Day long weekend in Chicago (I accidentally wore my red and white on June 30th, thinking it was July 1st). Also we love seeing Janice via road-trip as much as we can every summer.  Here are some snaps from the trip!

Since we’d done some of the more touristy stuff last year (though we had to see the bean again, despite the heat), we had a lot more time to explore the suburbs like Andersonville, Pilsen and Logan Square (which was where our Airbnb host was located). We also had a lot more time to eat. So there will be a follow-up food post to come.

PGH

May 8, 2014 / / 0 Comments

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Some photos from our road trip last weekend!

Dave and I peaced outta work at midday, drove the five hours to Pittsburg, and had a fun weekend visiting PA. We stayed at an Airbnb in the neighbourhood of East Liberty and walked to the downtown area for the Jays games, so we got to see a fair bit of the city (for such a short stay). I really liked the working-class feel of the ‘Burgh. The locals were generally very friendly, even though we were repping blue instead of black and gold (we did get chirped a few times though).

I particularly liked Saturday morning, where we got coffee at Cafe Voluto, walked down Penn Ave, through Allegheny Cemetery, then made our way to The Strip (where we had brunch* at Bar Marco and donuts at Peace Love and Little Donuts), and visited the Andy Warhol Museum (more on that later), and finally to PNC Park.

We saw Jays lose the first night and win the next. It was a great weekend, just like old times when Dave and I used to take road trips all the time.

 

* I hate brunch but Bar Marco was good