Mission on Burnside

Lately I had a chance to just take my time and walk around random parts of Portland and document interesting things I see around the city. This is what I started with this blog when I first started and I'll try to keep posting about Portland as best as I can. This series of pictures was taken on my walk around the Burnside area on the East side of the river.  The red building above isn't actually tilting, it's just a photo technique.

One of the coolest landmark in Portland is the Doug Fir which includes the eating area, the concert venue and the Jupiter motel. The Doug Fir compound is one of the go-to hangout areas for the modern hippies.

Burnside is really earning the reputation for having some of the coolest collection of local shops around Portland such as vintage/used clothing stores, home goods, music shops, etc...

Some of my favorite places around Burnside are:
- Doug Fir Lounge - Very cool music venue place. A lot of my favorite artist plays here.
- Rock n' Rose Vintage Clothing - Want to dress like me? Shop here.
- The Farm Cafe - On my "To Try List". I heard their trout is good.
- Hippo Hardware - I always want to buy something here for the house. Always find good items.
- Fouteen30 Contemporary - Cool art gallery featuring local artist.
- Nationale - This shop has many cool stuff.
- Le Pigeon - Looks expensive but the reviews makes me want to try it.
- Rontoms - Another cool hangout place. Their patio is awesome.

I love scooters

Hop scotch anyone?

Dim Sum for Breakfast

A couple weeks ago, my wife and I had a rare weekday chance to go eat dim sum for breakfast. We met up with my sister and mother to go eat at this fairly new place called HK Cafe. You know a dim sum place is good when the restaurant is packed with people, and not just any people, these were old chinese folks and on a weekday. Usually dim sum places are only packed on a weekend.  After the initial first bites of the usual dishes I usually eat, the shomai above and the ha gau below, I knew this place was awesome.  I recommend this place if you haven't tried it. It's very comparable to the dim sum in Wong's King.

The durian filled cream puff was pretty good. Don't try it if you don't like durian.

Chambray Studios

Hi everyone it's official, my site is up and it's called Chambray Studios. I had an opportunity to start my photography business and I'm taking advantage of it and pushing to make this work. Many people have mentioned to me that I should take my talent to the next level and that just pushes me to start Chambray Studios. I focus on specialty photography and my try to incorporate a cinematic look in my work.  Check it out and thanks for the support.

Moop Messenger Bag

For my birthday, Nana got me this awesome messenger bag and it was perfect because I've been looking for a messenger bag for a while but haven't found one that I really like.  She got this bag from etsy and the brand is Moop.  They have awesome handmade bags for women also.  Check them out!!!  This bag is great also because it's a waxed canvas material which means it's very durable and waterproof.  This is great since rain is a big part of Portland.  The bottom line is I love this bag, I'm a big person and this bag is big and has lots of compartments which make me happy. 

Vintage Portland Issue#1

A while ago, Nana and I were driving around south east Portland randomly turning left and right every other block until a couple vintage stores caught our eyes.  We had to stop and check these places out because we're into a phase in our lives where we like old vintage pieces and items.  It's nice to find these kinds of places because it makes Portland more attractive, but bad because it makes us want to spend all our money on antique/vintage pieces.

The place above is called the White Rabbit Vintage Furniture.  We found this place on the historic Belmont Street.  The store isn't too big but they carry a lot of nice items that I was drooling over. 

The second vintage place we went to is called the House of Vintage in Hawthorne (below).  This place in my opinion is the biggest vintage store in Portland, I could be wrong but I say it's the biggest because we kept going into these small rooms that led to another room and so on...  It took us a good hour just to walk through the place with just skimming through the items.  To look at every single thing would probably take us closer to three hours to finish.  Anyways, both places are amazing, if you like these kind of places, please shop there and support them. 

The usual pieces that catch my eyes are bottles, vintage cameras and posters.

Los Gorditas

For my birthday, we decided to go out and try a new place in Division in the Richmond Neighborhood in Portland. We've passed this place called Los Gorditas a couple times before and the place is always packed, so we had to try this place.  I read the reviews before going to this place and there was a whopping 220 reviews for this corner food truck..  Many people suggested the Garbage Burrito, so that's what I got.

The woman enjoying the place.

The good luck bear for an awesome meal.

Let's get down to the good stuff.  We ordered a variety of tacos and the ones above are the carne asada, carne deshebrada, and the pastor.  The carne asada and deshebrada are steak and the pastor is grilled pork.  All of them are good, but the best are the tacos below.  Hands down the carnitas which is the fried pork is the best.  This carnitas is some of the best that we've tried all over Portland and very comparable to another place in Alberta.  I'm getting hungry just by looking at these pictures. Again.

I also ordered the infamous garbage burrito that is the buzz in the reviews I read.  Look at the size of this beast compared to my head.  So the way the menu describes the garbage burrito is:

"Large flour tortilla stuffed with beans, rice, cheese, sour cream, onion, cilantro, chicken, beef, and pork, plus a scoop of red and green salsa, onion and cilantro again."

With the three types of meat incorporated into this awesome burrito, I just had to try.  It was good, really good, my life will never be the same.  Just look at this awesome thing.

What an awesome place. This will not be the last time I go here.

For dessert, my woman made me a chocolate almond cake with strawberries. What a perfect day.

Summer Thrifting

Here are some cool items that we've acquired over this past month from various places like Goodwill and Salvation Army.  We got the bottle above for $2 from the Salvation Army boutique store. 

An old looking stapler box from the southeast Goodwill Outlet.  I like the design of the box.  This shows that good design always last forever.

We got this huge wooden frame from the Aloha Goodwill Outlet for $5.

Metal hearts - .50 cents from some random estate sale in North Portland.

My favorite is this G-Star Raw jeans, straight fit cut, that I got for $5 from the thrift store Bearly Worn on Division.  Unfortunately the store closed not too long after I got this jeans.  Perfect timing and I'm glad I found these jeans.

Freedom Land

On the fourth of July, we went to our friend's house, James and Phyllis, for some awesome bbq and fireworks.  I should've taken a picture the steak that James made because it was so good.  He basically used coffee grounds as a part of the seasoning which gave this crispy-coffee like texture to the steak.  What a great dinner, thanks guys.  After that we lit some fireworks and these pictures are my attempt to capture them.  My favorite firework pictures are the one above and the last picture.

Adi's wild side comes out in the night.

Nana with the sparklers.

Hardware & Architectural

This store called Hardware & Architectural is by far one of the coolest and probably my most favorite store in Portland.  We found this store as a part of our phase of exploring the Richmond neighborhood in Division.  This type of store is what I've been looking for in Portland and I'm glad it's here.  It's not a new store but very cool indeed.  This place reminds me of a flea market in New York, all of the items they carry are exactly alike.  Some things they carry are vintage looking items like bottles, signs, clocks, furniture and even vintage cameras.  The moment I went into the place, I felt like I was a little chap going into a candy store, drooling, starring at items in awe and drooling again. Yeah, this place is that awesome!!!

I love this fender piece, they had it in front of the store.

There are some many unique and interesting items here.  My wife had to hold me from buying many items that were cool.

 Many of the light fixtures are custom made by a guy that works in the store.

The store is huge, there is a whole second section in the back of the store which carried the bigger items such as window frames, doors, and wooden sectionals like the picture above.  This is my all time current favorite store in Portland.  Check it out!!!

Division Ops

Division is such an awesome place to explore, we passed it by a couple times before just to see potential stores we can to by to and found that there were many thrift/vintage clothing stores all along Division.  This thrift store that we went to was called Bearly Worn.  They had some pretty good stuff here and the time we went there, they had a sale on top of their regular prices because they were going out of business.  It's unfortunate they had to close.  We found a couple cool items here.  Nana found a red vintage shirt and a G-Star shirt.  I found a G-Star jeans for $6.  Nice.

The woman and the dog exploring Division.

Shoes.

An awesome picture of meat. I was attracted to the sign.

There was this old sign/board of a bicycle shop, I wanted to take it but it was soaking wet.