One of the many reasons Rick and I decided to "date" Portland for a while is because it's such a wonderfully vegan-friendly city. We've only been here a few days, and we're still staying in a hotel, which means we have to eat out most of the time. Our favorite go-to comfort restaurant is Veggie Grill, and I expect we'll be found there quite often. But yesterday we were near the convention center looking for lunch, and fortunately had friends to recommend a little spot nearby that they had recently tried. Pho Green Papaya is the kind of inconspicuous place we might drive right by unless we knew better. I'm so glad we took our friends' advice and stopped in.
Obviously, it's not an all-vegan restaurant. There is, however, a nicely varied vegan section on the menu. There were several things we wanted to try, but we narrowed it down to two lunch dishes - the Tofu Udon Curry Noodle Soup, and the Vietnamese Jade Noodles. Both were fantastic. The curry was rich and coconutty and a little on the sweet side, with those nice fat udon noodles and lots of tofu and vegetables. The Jade Noodles were my favorite, and I hoarded that plate loaded with a nice balance of noodles and crunchy bean sprouts, red bell peppers, tofu, and a simply wonderful savory sauce.
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| Tofu Udon Curry Noodle Soup |
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| Vietnamese Jade Noodles |
