Portland
Sorry I didn't get around to writing about all the little oddities of very small town, remote, almost Labrador Quebec. It wasn't that odd, but it was quiet. People didn't have to run here and there from one activity to another. Good if you wanted to knit a sweater and watch lots of movies. I didn't do much of that.
I went to Portland last weekend with a bunch of friends. FUN! I fell in love with the city and could easily live there for a time if I could get a job. I could even afford to buy a house there. Too bad it's in the States.
Just about every food cart and restaurant I saw served vegetarian or even vegan fare (mind you, I do filter automatically and unconciously now). And it was delicious. The voodoo donuts made me sick though.
Portland has cute neighbourhoods just like Vancouver - neighbourhoods with cute boutiques.
The city has some nice transit, although we didn't explore it much, and it could have run more frequently (though we were there on the weekend).
More importantly, the city has some great chocolate on offer, and I made the tour. Most of my pre-trip research was on this site. That guy knows his chocolate. Here is my quick summary, in no order whatsoever:
Alma - created some delicious flavour combinations but they overpowered the chocolate. If you're not looking for a big chocolate hit, these are fantastic. The best truffles I sampled on the trip.
Xocolatl by David - we sample his Raleigh bars and found them incredibly salty. I didn't even want to finish it. I found this surprising since the blog had highly rated this guy. We couldn't get any of his truffles though.
Michel Cluizel - I know this guy isn't local, or even from the country, but I've never seen any truffles by the brand and didn't know such things existed. It was decent.
Sahagun - also highly rated by the blog, the storefront had apparently shut down and I wasn't interested in going to Cacao a third time to get the truffles. I was feeling guilty about missing the hockey game.
Cacao - WOW. They don't make truffles in house, but sell a HUGE variety of QUALITY chocolate bars, both international companies/sources and small national start-ups. I can't remember half of the brands but some were: Granada (holy value batman), Amadei, Cocanu, DePaula, Madecasse, etc. They even had chocolate collected by farmers from wild plants in Bolivia. They did serve drinking chocolate. The milkier cinnamon was unanimously voted the best among the friends whom I had forced to attend the tasting. I spent a lot of money here. The chocolate nibs they carry are really quite fruity in flavour and much less dusty or bitter than other nibs I've had.
Meadow - this is actually a wine/salt/chocolate store. It turns out that it's pretty easy to max out on salt tasting. As for chocolate, they carry a variety of quality bars as well as a few in-house samples made with different salts. The house-made square I bought wasn't that great and brought back memories of eating too much salt. I bought some grapefruit bitters there and was sorely tempted by the mole flavoured bitters. Yum!
I went to Portland last weekend with a bunch of friends. FUN! I fell in love with the city and could easily live there for a time if I could get a job. I could even afford to buy a house there. Too bad it's in the States.
Just about every food cart and restaurant I saw served vegetarian or even vegan fare (mind you, I do filter automatically and unconciously now). And it was delicious. The voodoo donuts made me sick though.
Portland has cute neighbourhoods just like Vancouver - neighbourhoods with cute boutiques.
The city has some nice transit, although we didn't explore it much, and it could have run more frequently (though we were there on the weekend).
More importantly, the city has some great chocolate on offer, and I made the tour. Most of my pre-trip research was on this site. That guy knows his chocolate. Here is my quick summary, in no order whatsoever:
Alma - created some delicious flavour combinations but they overpowered the chocolate. If you're not looking for a big chocolate hit, these are fantastic. The best truffles I sampled on the trip.
Xocolatl by David - we sample his Raleigh bars and found them incredibly salty. I didn't even want to finish it. I found this surprising since the blog had highly rated this guy. We couldn't get any of his truffles though.
Michel Cluizel - I know this guy isn't local, or even from the country, but I've never seen any truffles by the brand and didn't know such things existed. It was decent.
Sahagun - also highly rated by the blog, the storefront had apparently shut down and I wasn't interested in going to Cacao a third time to get the truffles. I was feeling guilty about missing the hockey game.
Cacao - WOW. They don't make truffles in house, but sell a HUGE variety of QUALITY chocolate bars, both international companies/sources and small national start-ups. I can't remember half of the brands but some were: Granada (holy value batman), Amadei, Cocanu, DePaula, Madecasse, etc. They even had chocolate collected by farmers from wild plants in Bolivia. They did serve drinking chocolate. The milkier cinnamon was unanimously voted the best among the friends whom I had forced to attend the tasting. I spent a lot of money here. The chocolate nibs they carry are really quite fruity in flavour and much less dusty or bitter than other nibs I've had.
Meadow - this is actually a wine/salt/chocolate store. It turns out that it's pretty easy to max out on salt tasting. As for chocolate, they carry a variety of quality bars as well as a few in-house samples made with different salts. The house-made square I bought wasn't that great and brought back memories of eating too much salt. I bought some grapefruit bitters there and was sorely tempted by the mole flavoured bitters. Yum!