Every vegan has experienced the anxiety of wondering if there are any food options while traveling, and every dog owner has gone through the hassle of finding dog friendly hotels and restaurants along a road trip. Add these together and you get a fun double whammy of road trip planning. This is Part II (Part I here) of our trip and stops on our road trip from Los Angeles, California to Portland, Oregon, as two vegans with a dog.
Picking up where we left of, this leg of the trip was a relatively short drive (1 hour 45 mins) from Eugene to Portland. No stops.
Well, technically its Beaverton, but close enough. We stayed at the Element Hotel in Beaverton, which is always dog friendly and has a little kitchenette; however, no stove. We were still able to make teas using the hot water available in the lobby. The pet fee was $100 for the trip. Otherwise, options are plentiful in the Portland area so I won’t go into more detail here. We did swing by Vancouver WA just to say we did. Three state road trip, yay!
Since we had been to Portland before, out primary mission this time was to seek out vegan food. To start we had Van Nien Vegan Baguette, which is a food truck stuck to the side of a Buddhist temple. Just a bit of warning the food did taste a bit like incense, which was burning everywhere. That being said, they were super nice and gave us a free vegan “chicken wing”.
Special vermicelli.
BBQ Pork Rice.
Free Chicken Wings.
Next up on the list was Friendship Kitchen. Seems like we might have been on a vegan Vietnamese food kick.
Vegan Pho.
Salt and Pepper Vegan Drumsticks.
Tofu Crepe (Banh Xeo chay).
More Vietnamese food and An An. Honestly, probably the best meal we had at Portland.
Fried oyster mushrooms.
Vegan pork belly rice bowl.
Soup portion of vegan spicy noodle soup.
Noodle portion of the vegan spicy noodle soup.
For dessert, we stopped by Kate’s Ice Cream shop. All vegan, and all delicious!
Left is pistachio and peach cobbler, to the right is blueberry sweet corn and marionberry cobbler.
Veering away from Vietnamese, we got some Thai food at Norah.
Pad Thai Nachos.
Veganized Pad See Ew.
We stopped by Unthank Park, which was fine, a pretty standard neighborhood park, but it has a pretty significant history.
We also took a hike at some point, but there were people on the trail so I didn’t take pictures, but it was nice. Even though it was in the middle of the city, we were transported to the forests of the Pacific Northwest in just a couple of steps.
The last spot in Portland we stopped by was Off The Griddle for some vegan breakfast.
Nacho Fries.
Breakfast burrito.
Inside the burrito.
Very close by was SymbiOp Garden shop, which specializes in Oregon Native plants. They had a very nice selection of medicinal plants as well, worth a visit if you live in the area.
With that, we departed towards Sacramento, CA.
We stopped at Roseburg, OR to get some food from Brix.
Vegan burger.
Vegan tacos.
Once again we stayed in an Element Hotel near Sacramento airport. Just like before, options are plentiful so I won’t discuss this too much, but the pet fee was $50,a and $10 for parking.
Although there were quite a few vegan options in Sacramento, none of them were open when we wanted to leave.
So we headed back to LA and stopped in Merced, CA for food at 88 Bao Bao.
Vegetarian buns.
Inside the bun.
Vegetarian dumplings.
Inside the dumpling.
Cucumber salad.
And with that our road trip from Los Angeles, CA to Portland, OR was concluded. Final thoughts are that the Pacific Northwest is very beautiful and lush, so if you are a nature type there is plenty to see and do.
Let us know how these travel blogs can be more helpful!
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