Portland Day 1 and 2: Portobello, Hunger Tiger Too, Prasad

We arrived on Thu afternoon and for our first meal in Portland, we met up with the lovely Geanna from Green Vegan living at Portobello.  Portobello is a slightly upmarket but affordable vegan Italian restaurant. Our first impressions of Portland were that there was lots of gorgeous trees, the city itself was quite small and that restaurants like Portobello were in the middle of nowhere.We shared the cashew cheese stuffed sweety peps, which were not spicy and had a slightly sweet flavour. The cashew cheese was smooth and creamy. They were a great start to an excellent meal.

I couldn't resist ordering a gluten free pizza, I chose the Patata pizza which has thin slices of potato, carmelised onions, pine nuts and fir tips on it. I was surprised that there was no vegan cheese on this pizza or any pesto/tomato base but it was still tasty. The gf base was excellent and made me realise that gf pizza in Australia is inferior.

Toby and I shared the nectarine-beet risotto croquettes and both enjoyed this dish.  Toby also enjoyed his gluteny dish.

For dessert, I had the cookies and cream. For some reason I just presumed that this was ice cream but instead it was coconut and black pepper 'cream' which was mousse like in texture. The black pepper was not strong but occasionally provided a slight amount of heat to the coconut 'cream'. The cookies were maple flavoured and were quite crispy and thin and great with the 'cream'. I also enjoyed the grilled fruit that come with this dish.

I also tried a bit of Genna's chocolate and rosemary tart. I hate rosemary but wanted to see if it was subtle, unfortunately it wasn't but I'm certain that if you like rosemary you would enjoy it.

Day 2

On second day, we met up with fellow Aussie Susan from Kittens Gone Lentil who was also in town and staying at the same hotel as us. We went to Hungry Tiger Too, an omni cafe/bar which is super vegan friendly and lots of gf options for brunch too. We ordered way too much food which including this giant gluten free and vegan pancake as a side to my breakfast.  It actually tasted good too

Small scrambled tofu:

And this was Toby and my favourite tofu 'chicken' with  a gluten free and vegan waffle. The tofu was super tasty. I'm not sure what the batter/spices were but it was addictive. This place had me announcing on my first full day that I already loved Portland. I mean where else could you find gluten free and vegan pancakes, waffles etc.

And then we walked the short walk to vegan mini mall and visited 3 out of the 4 stores, since none of us wanted a tattoo :-) Susan and I spent a long time browsing very carefully at everything and spending a fare bit of money at food fight-vegan grocery store while Toby went to find coffee. We also both bought the same top from herbivore, thankfully we live in different ciies in Australia!

And lastly we visited sweetpea bakery- a vegan bakery. I didn't have much room in my belly, but you know dessert is a different stomach compartment, right? I ordered the gluten free chocolate chip cookie which was huge but unfortunately a bit disappointing flavour wise, it just kind of screamed gluten free, I can't name it, but perhaps it was strong rice flour flavour.

For dinner, we decided to go for healthy option near out hotel and visited Prasad.  They share a space with a yoga studio and seemed to focus on healthy/raw dishes.  Toby had the soul salad with tempeh, avocado, slow roasted tomatoes, spinach and a red chilli vinagrette. He said that it 'not boring and very refreshing'.

I had the dragon bowl which comes with quinoa, avocado, kale, seaweed and beans. You then choose what sauce and Susan shared her secret that last time she selected two sauces, I copied her and ordered lemon ginger and peanut. I loved both and it seemed like a great way to balance out the junk food that we had for brunch.