It’s exceedingly rare for me to get excited about a pancake. If I’m going to go to the trouble to make breakfast batter at home, that batter is going into a waffle iron for maximum crispiness and nooks for butter and syrup. I am especially loathe to stand in line for a pancake. But I recently heard someone talk about SlappyCakes, and after perusing their menu, determined that it was a pancake experience worth waiting for.  I made a point of getting up at the asscrack of dawn (aka 7am, the struggle is real) to get to SlappyCakes before they opened. Even so, there was already a line forming when we arrived. I’d told Jason that we were going to a pancake place and about the different batters and toppings, but I neglected to tell him the most important part–that you cook the pancake yourself on a griddle at your table, Korean BBQ style.

We ordered two different pancake batters — buttermilk and chocolate, as well as the two toppings each of us was most interested in. I went with the lemon curd and dried cherries, and Jason chose bananas and nutella. For good measure, we also split a side of chicken fried bacon. Everyone has seen those crazy detailed art pancake videos that are continually making the rounds on facebook. Overconfident, I decided that I was a budding pancake artist as well, and for some reason, decided that my first glorious pancake creation would be a worm. My “worm” resembled nothing so much as a hot turd, and it was with said turd on the griddle that our waitress came back and saw the horror that I’d wrought. She glanced at it and politely asked us if she could bring us anything. Her eyes said she was thinking that she probably couldn’t, if that was what we were into. TurdCake, however ugly, was delicious. The chocolate pancake batter was excellent, and I bet that it would have been even better in combination with the peanut butter batter. The dried cherries, which are kind of ‘meh’ when cold, are soft and delightful when baked into a pancake.

My second attempt at pancake ‘art’ went much more smoothly. I had so much fun making pancake creations, and I could have kept going save for the fact that both of our stomachs were completely out of room.

Lack of room didn’t stop us from strolling into Salt & Straw about an hour later, though. We’d made an attempt late in the evening the night before and were stymied by the line that stretched around the damn block, like they were giving out ice cream for free with $100 bills tucked into the cones. Since we found ourselves in the area for something else post pancake binge, we decided to see what the line situation was like at 10am. As it turns out, the line situation is nonexistent, so should you find yourself with a desire for Salt & Straw but no patience for lines, you may need to develop a taste for early morning ice cream.

We split a “flight” of ice cream — four kid-size scoops, which were still about twice as large as I expected them to be. The flavors we chose were Double Vanilla, Strawberry Balsamic, Honey Bear, and Gummy Wummy Surprise. Jason is the vanilla guy, mostly I think vanilla is vanilla is vanilla. Honey Bear is the reason I sought out the NW 23rd shop–it’s vanilla custard with chocolate honeycomb pieces and edible glitter, and it was surprisingly my least favorite of the bunch. I love chocolate honeycomb, but there was just something about it that tasted off to me. Gummy Wummy Surprise Sorbet tasted exactly like a gummy bear. It was eerie. And Strawberry Balsamic ended up being my favorite, with its jammy strawberry flavor with that hit of balsamic richness at the end that gave the flavor incredible depth. After all this, I wasn’t hungry for about twelve hours–the surprise was that I was hungry again that day at all. Or that week.

Voodoo Doughnuts and Blue Star Donuts: Both monsters in the Portland breakfast pastry scene, with diametrically opposed positions on just about everything, including how to spell the product they sell. My initial idea for this doughnut challenge was to buy an asston of doughnuts from both, bring them back to a secure location (also known as the hotel room) and compare them head to head, bite for bite. This plan failed for a number of different reasons. First and foremost, while I don’t doubt that a person exists who can eat bites of twenty different doughnuts and not feel horrifically, violently ill for the rest of the day, that person is not me. Second, while I may not always want to wear pants, I would like for them to continue to be an option.

Here’s the breakdown: Voodoo Doughnut specializes in raised yeast doughnuts with quirky toppings (think cereal), unusual shapes (think cock and balls), and punn-y names. They’re expensive, there’s almost always a line, and they’re cash only. They’ve got a huge variety of doughnuts on their menu, including a maple bacon doughnut in a bar style with entire strips of bacon on top.  You’re going to see a lot of people carrying their distinctive pink box throughout the streets of Portland. Blue Star Donuts specializes in brioche donuts featuring local, sustainable toppings and flavors, traditional shapes, and basic, descriptive names. They’re expensive (even a little moreso than Voodoo), there’s almost always a line, and they take cards. They’ve got a much smaller variety of doughnuts on their menu, including a maple bacon donut in a circle style with crumbled bacon on top. You’re going to see a lot of people carrying their distinctive white box throughout the streets of Portland.  

I went to Blue Star Donuts first because I’d never been there before, and I’ve been to Voodoo several times (I’ve even tried their voodoo wedding!). The shop was packed to the gills, but the line moved relatively quickly, and we bought and tried six different varieties: classic buttermilk, vanilla and cinnamon sugar, maple bacon, blueberry bourbon basil, key lime lemon curd, and a still-warm hard apple cider fritter. Holy shit. Holy shit holy shit holy shit. I want to say that it took more than one bite to determine that I didn’t need to go back to Voodoo to declare a victor, but that isn’t true. One bite of the blueberry bourbon basil was all it took, and the bites I took of each of the others only confirmed it. Blue Star Donuts sells the superior donut by a landslide. While both shops sell perfectly fluffy pastries, the natural flavors and gourmet pairings Blue Star uses makes all the difference. Granted, I still felt ill after eating bites of everything, but I regret nothing. Sorry, Voodoo. You and Kenny Rogers will always have a place in my heart, but Blue Star has claimed my waistline.