Let's Have Another Cup of Coffee, Let's Have Another Piece of Fish

The older that I get, the harder it seems to get out of bed in the morning when I'm camping. One could say it's the peaceful tranquility that comes from being outdoors and longing to stay in the sleeping bag listening to the birds chirp outside or the rain dancing on the top of the tent. But if I'm being candid, what really makes it difficult to rise from my slumber when camping is that my back just doesn't want to work anymore. Making any sort of movement on those mornings proves to be rather difficult, and Friday morning was no different, though the setting was certainly easy to wake up to. We heard the sound of the waves crashing on the ocean and the light dripping of dew from the trees on top of us as we awoke, and the entire forrest was covered with a morning mist that was simply breathtaking. 

As we packed up our camp and said goodbye to the beach, we headed up the west coast to visit a well-known lighthouse at Cape Meares, just a 25 minute drive north of where we camped. We stopped in a little town called Oceanside on the way for some coffee and breakfast. This place is basically on the side of a cliff overlooking the ocean, and I don't even know the name of the restaurant we walked into, but I'm sure glad we came. I was worried at first because the place seemed a little run down and there were visible spider webs hanging from various places throughout the dining room. The waitress came and took our order as we sat at a table with a window overlooking the water. The coffee tasted a little like fish (I would think most things do in this town), which is not what we were expecting, but we gave them the benefit of the doubt on that one; we knew not to expect great coffee on our excursion up the coast. My favorite breakfast of all time is eggs benedict. There is something so great about the crunchy English muffin paired with ham, a runny egg, and a delicious hollandaise sauce that is a perfect marriage on a plate! One of the specials at this place was a crab benedict, served on cibatta bread. After tasting the fishy coffee, I was very skeptical, but when you're on the beach, you have to give this a shot, right? It was one of the best benedicts I've ever had in my life! The crab comes from a local seafood market and was caught nearby. The buttery hollendaise paired perfectly with the fresh crab, because what goes better with crab than butter? Nadene had a breakfast sandwich, but kept sneaking bites of my food throughout the entire meal. I couldn't blame her either - something that delicious was meant to be shared! 

We had a fun time at breakfast and drove through the little town of Oceanside afterward. We then headed up to Cape Meares to see the lighthouse. The drive up was beautiful with amazing views of the ocean all along the way. We parked the car in the parking lot on top of the hill that led to the lighthouse and there was one other car parked that morning. A short hike down the hill, and we came upon a beautiful little lighthouse with wide sweeping views of the ocean! It was such a sweet moment looking out at the rocks and houses on the cliffs on the south side. There was another gentlemen there at the lighthouse when we approached. None of us said a word as we gazed at the beauty before us, we just stood in silence and took in the views. I could go on, but words won't really do justice to what we saw there. It was a pretty cool experience.

After spending some time at Cape Mears, we headed back to Portland for the rest of the day. We went straight to a place called Courier Coffee Roasters, which started out in the late 90s as a bike coffee delivery service. In 2010, they opened up their own storefront and serve their own coffee there. We had a pour over, latté, and one of their homemade chocolate chip cookies. It was all excellent! The local conversation throughout the small shop was fun to listen in on as well!

A few days earlier, we scheduled a tour and tasting with Portland Roasting company for Friday afternoon, so after coffee at Courier, we headed to Northeast Portland for a tour of the facility. We were the only people on the tour, so it was a bit awkward. It was just us and a tour guide who seemed very nervous about being there as if she had never done this before. She showed us the cupping room where the tasters for the company decide on different coffees to purchase from farms all over the world, and she took us back to the roasting room, which smelled so good! At the end of the short tour we had a chance to sample some of the coffees, including a couple of roasts they make from Guatemala, which is our favorite! 

After getting recommendations from the staff there, we headed over to Southpark Seafood in downtown Portland, which ended up being a great cap to the rest of the day. We had a variety board that included pork belly pastrami, foie gras, and a French comte cheese. All of these are things we're not very familiar with, but each thing we tried was just excellent! The restaurant was very Portland! If you've ever watched Portlandia, this is the exact kind of thing that is made fun of all the time. The food here was certified by the aquarium in town as being responsibly harvested in a way that was more environmentally friendly and some other stuff. I don't know exactly what the guy told us, but I think our fish's name was Calvin and he had been raised in a free environment. Though some of the things seem a little overboard to me, I cannot argue with the quality and deliciousness of the food! Everything we had here was amazing. For the main dish we had a piece of sole fish that was stuffed with a prawn mousse with capers and a salad of pickled green beans, pickled onions, grilled asparagus, and arugala. It reminded us of the "we can pickle that" sketch from Portlandia. What an experience! As you can see, the building is quite unique as well.

We're having a blast up here in the Northwest. We'll be writing more along the way as we continue our journey through Portland and make a stop over in Seattle toward the end of the week. Keep up with us as we continue the search for great coffee on the West Coast! Until next time, cheers!

Caleb & Nadene