I’m so very glad that we followed the many recommendations and visited Tasty n Sons for brunch while we were in Portland last fall. Here’s a photo of the dining room that I grabbed from their website. Don’t you love the Soup Peddler-style bicycle on the wall?
How cute is this stamp on the top of the menu? I want to have hundreds of these made so that I can wear them everywhere.

Adam and I grabbed seats on the bar near the window, and ordered glasses of Smith Teamaker tea. You …

Both Adam and I are regular coffee drinkers (especially me), so of course we had to visit Portland’s Stumptown Coffee while on our honeymoon last fall. Here are some photos from our stop at the Stumptown in the lobby of the Ace Hotel.

I love the design and feel of their bags of coffee beans.

We picked up two pastries — a kouign amann and a raspberry hazelnut scone — to enjoy with our coffees. Kouign Amann is a round cake with layers of caramelized sugar. The cake originated in western France, but …

Just a quick shout-out to Portland’s Screen Door, where we went for brunch on our final day in the city. The wait was long, but we enjoyed spending some extra time walking around the neighborhood for most of the wait time.

The unforgettable dish that we ordered was their famous fried chicken on a sweet potato waffle. Served with maple syrup, as any self-respecting waffle or pancake item should, we also enjoyed the hot sauce that was served on the side. As you can see, this is a huge dish, and …

Almost everyone who gave us recommendations of where to eat in Portland suggested Pok Pok. And after visiting during our honeymoon last fall — I have to agree. The first thing you need to be prepared for when you go to Pok Pok is that there will be a wait. The nice thing about the wait is that you can do down the street at Whiskey Soda Lounge while eating Pok Pok appetizers and drinking cocktails.

One tip for those visiting Pok Pok is that the dishes are some of the most …

Sometimes, when people visit Austin for the weekend, or for events like SXSW, they decide not to rent a car if they are staying downtown. Downtown Austin used to be sort of a ghost town as far as great restaurants went, with a few sprinkled here and there, but not enough to sustain even a weekend visitor very easily. Luckily, Austin is growing like mad, and new restaurants are opening every week.

For the Austin City Guide, I’ve pulled together a list of my top 25 downtown restaurants, with “downtown” in …