Happy summer! As is typical here in Seattle the weather sucks for the beginning of summer. Should get nice right about July 5th...

Kat and I went to Portland last weekend. We were thinking of heading out to a national park like Glacier and then Napa but the weather in all those places was supposed to suck so we went to Portland instead. Portland is a nice city, but I don't get any wow out of it. For the first time we rented bikes which was definitely the best way to get around. When I travel I often think of myself as the advance-scouting team for Tasting Menu so we tried some new places. Higgins for dinner was very disappointing- great recommendations for it as being fresh, local ingredients, but it just wasn't that good. We started with a spinach and beets salad that somehow ended up being a strange combination- the spinach was almost-sort-of-wilted like they couldn't decide which approach to take. We also tried the asparagus gratin that also came out somewhat strange. The entrees were unnecessarily huge. The spring pea and bacon risotto was just poorly done- it was too mushy and the bacon chunks and something else had this strange vinegar flavor. When I think of pea risottos I'm looking for nice subtle flavors with a rich base and a bit of tooth on the texture. This one had none of those things. The steak at least was good, if nothing special. The one bright side was that they had a cherry clafouti for dessert which while it wasn't quite as good as the ones at Lampreia was still great.