Salt and Straw

I've been wanting to try Salt and Straw for awhile. For some reason, I thought there was only one location that was out to the way (on NW Alberta St) so I hadn't yet decided to make the trek over there. As luck would have it, I had to stop by a toy store on my way to the airport last Thursday, and when I arrived, I spotted Salt and Straw across the street! It was fate! :)

So excited to go inside!

When I walked inside, I was immediately greeted with the smell of waffle cones... I love that smell! There was a line inside, but the staff came around the counter to each guest offering tastes while we waited. That was a great system! I tried the Sea Salt with Caramel Ribbon, and the Chocolate with Gooey Brownies. I didn't think the chocolate actually had very gooey brownies inside...but oh MAN that sea salt with caramel. It was exactly what I had been hoping for!

Look at all of the flavors!

 The ice cream had an amazing caramel ribbon. It was thick and salty and super caramel-y. It was my dream caramel :)  As if they took the caramel sauce from Nostrana and thickened it up, and swirled it into the delicious ice cream base. The ice cream itself was also very good - super creamy, not at all icy. With each lick I was truly in ice cream heaven!

Perfectly paired with a waffle cone

Another amazing part about the ice cream was the waffle cone - not only was it delicious and crunchy, but it was folded at the bottom to prevent any dripping! Such a genius feature! I will definitely be going back to "research" the other flavors, especially the honey balsamic strawberry, the almond brittle with salted chocolate ganache, and the cinnamon snickerdoodle. YUM!

Salt and Straw
838 NW 23rd St, Portland OR

Lovely's Fifty-Fifty

photo credit: Daily Feed

Tonight I visited another place on the Zagat list: Lovely's Fifty-Fifty. This was ranked #9 of the 10 best restaurants on the Zagat list. (For context, Nostrana was ranked #10). It promised fantastic pizza, and "killer" housemade ice cream. Needless to say, I was excited.

Cute interior. Lots of wooden benches and kitchy wall art

The menu appears to change daily (or at least is printed daily) and features seasonal dishes. I started with a chickpea and red pepper soup. It was the highlight of the meal. I actually really enjoyed the soup - it had lots of simmered whole chickpeas in a spicy red pepper base. It also came with a big hunk of bread, which I thought was kind of odd for a pizza place (bread then pizza?) but I happily ate the soup. It also had a lovely (see what I did there?) sour cream topping which helped cut down some of the spice. The soup was great!

Yummy chickpea soup, with a side of glare

Next, I had the bellwether ricotta and gremolata pizza. Honestly, I was not impressed. The ricotta was very bland (yes, I know ricotta isn't terribly flavorful, but this was especially bland) and the pizza was incredibly oily. The gremolata was nice, although a bit too garlicky. The only redeeming thing about this pizza was the crust: it was made from a sourdough starter, but didn't have that powerful sourdough taste (which was good, in my opinion), and it was also thick and chewy around the edges. For a place that is known for pizza, I was pretty disappointed.

Ricotta pizza

Of course I had to try the housemade ice cream. There were about 6 flavors to choose from, but I went for the salted caramel. Again...disappointed. It just wasn't anything special. I had fantastic ice cream last week at Ruby Jewel, and that place wasn't on any sort of top 10 list! I'll need to go back to do an entry on this blog :)  The salted caramel at Lovely's did not have a strong caramel flavor, or a strong salt flavor for that matter. I wanted the caramel flavor to have a punch (similar to the salted caramel sauce at Nostrana....YUM), but it was extremely muted. Zagat... I think you failed me.

At least the waffle cone was good?

Don't get me wrong - Lovely's was not a bad meal. It just didn't live up to the Zagat claim of being one of the top 10 restaurants in this city. Though the soup was excellent, the pizza and ice cream were disappointing. But in case you want to try for yourself:

Lovely's Fifty-Fifty
4039 N Mississippi Ave, Portland OR