Crawl your way through the best bakeries of Portland and beyond!
Get ready, team. Portland Dining Month is back. And it’s looking quite good this year!
New to town or new to the awesome dining scene and have no idea what I’m talking about? It’s Travel Portland’s annual event, which is a coordinated effort of more than 120 restaurants across town offering up a 3-course meal for just $29 for the entire month of March! It is an awesome way to try out new restaurants or give yourself the excuse to hit up ones you haven’t been to in a while.
1229 SW 10th Ave & Jefferson • BehindtheMuseumCafe.com • 503.477.6625
Hours: Mon-Sat 8am-8pm; Sun 9am-7pm
Tucked next to the Portland Art Museum is one of my favorite little cafes. When you step into Behind the Museum Cafe, it transports me back to Japan, where we spent a few weeks back in 2014 (geez – how has it been that long already?!) to visit my brother and sister-in-law who live there.
The space is filled with gorgeous Japanese art and clothing; and their menu with delicious Japanese treats that bring back so many happy memories of our trip. Like their onigiri rice balls with various fillings wrapped in seaweed – Brice ate thousands of in our 3-weeks in Japan. Or their creamy matcha tea lattes which I enjoyed nearly every day.
A few weeks ago, way back in 2016, I attended the inaugural Buche de Noel cake competition at Ace Cleaners. It was such a fun, festive event planned by Clyde Common‘s pastry chef Kristen Napoleoni.
With delicious eggnog cocktails in hand, my friend Lauren and I wandered through the space, admiring the gorgeous nature-inspired cakes made by Portland’s top pastry chefs. I was so impressed by their ability to create such beautiful and creative yuletide logs.
We of course got to sample the desserts as well, then vote for our favorite. We debated how best to decide – did we choose the most traditional or most unique? Best tasting or based on presentation? It was difficult to choose as they were all incredible. After thinking hard about this important decision, we cast our votes, as did the rest of the attendees.