Portland / Willamette Valley recs

Moises. Guy is an LSU ER doctor and only sells his wine in Louisiana. His wine is also awesome!

I can help you with beer reccomendations. Not much help with wine...

Haven't been to either Ava Gene's or Little Bird.

Ava Gene's is right near the Imperial Bottle Shop and the Whiskey Soda Lounge. Try Salt and Straw for ice cream after dinner. It's fantastic, and within a block of Ava Gene's. Pok Pok is right there, too, if you are planning another meal in that area.

From there, if you go a little further west on Division St., you will run into Apex Bar, which usually has the best tap list in the city. Right across the street is the coolest dive taproom in the city (The Beermongers). Only 8 taps, but they are usually really good, and they have a huge bottle selection for great prices.

If you want to check out some breweries, you can find a bunch of them all within a mile of eachother. Cascade is probably the most unique, in that they will have 7 or 8 sours on tap, in addition to other beers. If you don't like sours, stay away from Cascade and go to some of the other breweries in the area - Hair of the Dog, Base Camp, The Commons, Burnside, Lucky Labrador, or Gigantic. Base Camp has a cool vibe, fantastic views, and they have some cool fire pits to sit around outside.

On the downtown side of the river, Deschutes, Bridgeport, and Rogue all have brewpubs. Check out Powell's Books when in that area of town. Many, many food trucks are to be found all over the city.

Another cool area of town to go is Mississippi Ave. Ecliptic and Stormbreaker breweries are over there, and it's just a cool area to walk around and there are plenty of good reasonably priced restaurants.

If staying in Portland, there are a couple of McMenamin's hotels in the area. Edgefield has a winery, distillery, and brewery. It's about 20 minutes out of town, though. The Kennedy School is an old school a few minutes from downtown that got converted into a hotel with several restaurants and bars. The Crystal Hotel is right downtown within walking distance of a lot of activities. These McMenamin's properties have a lot of character, but they are restored historical buildings may not be as modern as other hotels downtown. That's part of their charm, I guess.

Another thing to do is drive an hour and a half straight out highway 26 to Cannon Beach on the coast. Ecola state park is there and it's just a cool little town with a ton of character and some amazing ocean views. Lot's of great restaurants and shops to keep busy with.