{"id":19356,"date":"2011-06-22T12:09:03","date_gmt":"2011-06-22T19:09:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/?p=19356"},"modified":"2011-07-03T20:55:19","modified_gmt":"2011-07-04T03:55:19","slug":"the-quest-for-the-best-burger-in-portland-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/?p=19356","title":{"rendered":"The Quest for the Best Burger in Portland – Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Quest for the Best Burger in Portland – Part 1<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

For a week now Michael has been trying to convince me to go to a restaurant he calls “Hans Gruber<\/a>” — Gruner <\/a>in downtown Portland. I wasn’t craving burgers until Tuesday after a great workout. I suggested we give it a try and continue our quest for the best burger in Portland.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nWe went downtown and met up with one of Michael’s friends, Traver, for dinner. Michael got a glass of the Upright Engelberg Pilsener (OR) beer.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nAnd I got a glass of the Gr\u00fcner Veltliner (Stadt Krems, Kamptal, AT 2009) –white wine. It was a crisp, tangy wine that wasn’t too sweet and went perfectly<\/em> with the hot summer weather. We were sitting outside in the sun and it was a gorgeous Portland day–80+ degrees!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nThe three of us split an appetizer: fried smashed yellow finn potatoes, special sauce (um, Ranch dressing, not really “Special Sauce” but still good in my book!).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nThey were salty and good, and there weren’t enough for three people! I ate two. The burgers arrived. We all ordered the same thing: hamb\u00fcrger with smoky bacon on a potato bun with fontina cheese, b&b pickles, pickled red onions, a\u00efoli, arugula & house-made ketchup:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nThe burger was good. NOT the best burger in Portland but tasty. The bun was the best part of the burger, hands down. The burger didn’t need the bacon, it got kind of lost in the other flavors. The cheese was mild, the homemade ketchup had the consistency of tomato paste and I tasted curry.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nThe burger itself was good–meaty tasting–but not incredibly flavorful otherwise (spice wise). It was good but very greasy and messy to eat.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nIt was so nice being able to sit outside and enjoy dinner in the sun! They brought our bill in a book completely in German, which I thought was a cool touch.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nAfter dinner we decided to go for a walk through the Pearl District and find some dessert. It was a really nice stroll after a heavy dinner. It was the perfect night for a walk.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nWe ended up at Cupcake Jones<\/a>. I was tempted by all the amazing looking cupcakes! I was good though.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nWe each got one mini cupcake. Michael got the chocolate, Traver got a white chocolate with cranberry and I got the Pumpkin Spice.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nIt was so good! The mini cupcake was the perfect amount. I particularly liked the tiny sugar cookie on top of my cupcake too. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

We continued walking deeper into the Pearl District and ended up at Jamison Park<\/a>. I’d never seen the fountains there in the park, so it was a nice treat!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nThere were tons of kids playing in the fountain. It would be a nice place to relax and read in the summertime!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nBottom line on The Quest: Still have not discovered the BEST burger in Portland. So far I think the ranking is as follows: 1) Slow Bar<\/a>, 2) Foster Burger<\/a>, 3) Gruner, 4) Five Guys.<\/p>\n

QUESTION: Do you ever walk around your city like a tourist?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Quest for the Best Burger in Portland – Part 1 For a week now Michael has been trying to convince me to go to a restaurant he calls “Hans Gruber” — Gruner in downtown Portland. I wasn’t craving burgers until Tuesday after a great workout. I suggested we give it a try and continue […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[336,16,35,3662,55,66,314,315,85,86,92,101,104,107,1949,167,169,193,195,196,201,214,2806,1239,264,291,303],"tags":[3668,8585,3545,3665,505,506,516,522,1674,1791,1940,3667,3663,8674,3666,8691,3664,8752,8763],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/IMG_6693.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19356"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19356"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19423,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19356\/revisions\/19423"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}