It’s been about 5 years since I was last in Bend, and the city has certainly grown since then. It is still just as beautiful. There are tons of new places eat. One of these new spots is the perfect new 10 Barrel Brewpub. They’ve been brewing beer for about three years, but the brew pub has only been open since February. It’s an amazing spot. It is warm, comfortable, and inviting. There is a nice outdoor eating area. The bar has two giant garage door type windows that open behind it, and you can just walk up to the bar, from the outside, and order food. So it’s one bar, with both seating indoors and out. The bartender was nice, friendly, and quite the multi-tasker. They have standard pub grub, salads, sandwiches, and pizzas. And of course, they have tons of their own beer. We only tried one and it was great.

J got the rib-eye chopped salad. Look how big and gorgeous this salad is! It is a giant heap of romaine, marinated rib-eye, red onion, tomato, cucumber, warm prosciutto, and avocado. It is typically served with a creamy gorgonzola dressing, but you can get whatever dressing you want. It’s a stupendous salad. I ate all the prosciutto out of it!

I got the 10 barrel mac & cheese. It was unbelievably great. It is large elbow pasta with a 4 cheese sauce, hunks of pancetta, and green onions, and is served in a hot cast iron skillet. You also get delicious, hot, buttery garlic toast. I love, love, loved it. Just like I love, love, loved this whole entire place. We really loved everything about this place, and would have happily gone back again and again. If you’re ever in Bend, please stop by! You will love it. It’s places like this that make me wish I lived in Bend!

For my vacation out to central oregon, I connected through SFO. I got a nice surprise when I was upgraded into first class for my PHL to SFO flight. As you can see by my outstretched stump legs and the inability of the bottoms of my flexed feet to actually touch the divider, first class does not really matter to me, at least not comfort wise. I only get excited for it because of the free food. I’ve been reading this book called “Near A Thousand Tables” which is about the history of food. I highly recommend it!

The dinner choices were chicken quesadillas or pasta with mushroom sauce. Since I don’t like mushrooms, I went with the quesadillas. These really weren’t very good at all. The quesadillas themselves were pretty bland and the tortillas had gotten crunchy. The pico de gallo was the worst part though. They absolutely tasted like nothing. Nothing at all. It did not taste like tomatoes nor did it taste like onions. It kind of defied logic. But the saving grace was the warm oatmeal raisin cookie. Seriously, this might have been one of the best cookies I’ve ever had in my life. And it was on a flight. The flight attendant said it was a good cookie, and damn he was beyond correct.

So our flight to Redmond/Bend, OR actually got cancelled. They gave us the runaround for a very long time and delayed the flight for hours and hours until they finally cancelled it right around midnight west coast time, saying they couldn’t find a first officer. When the cockpit deplaned, two pilots got off. They totally screwed us. But with that cancellation came a free hotel stay and free breakfast vouchers. At least we’d be full on our flight the next morning. The food options at SFO are pretty darn good, especially if you go to one of the main food areas in the United terminal. Since it is airport food prices, the $15 actually doesn’t get you very far. J got a shredded chicken salad.

I tried to go as luxurious as possible, even though it was breakfast, and ordered the nabe yaki seafood udon at a japanese joint. The one thing you can count on in san francisco is the ubiquity of japanese food joints, even at the airport. The broth was a little bit on the bland side, but it was still damn good as far as airport food goes. I’ll take this over a sbarro pizza slice, any day!

The Salted Caramel ice cream from bi-rite creamery. Words… cannot… describe… You know on the Simpsons when Homer just starts drooling? Yeah, that’s pretty much this ice cream. It’s just… gah… I don’t know how… what… blargh. You just have to try it yourself. Bi-rite, I’m happy you’re far away.

Yum… a big old giant bottle of beer that’s the cost of like a case of beer… Look at it, it has a date bottle and they only made 600 cases… and it’s aged in oak barrels…

J kept on going on and on about this cabbage slaw from bi-rite, the market part. I can see why he likes it so much. The crunch, the zest, the technicolor beauty. It’s awesome. When it was nearly gone, there was still dressing left so we threw in some raw shredded cabbage in there to extend its life.

Before my flight out to SFO, I hung out in the US Airways lounge. You can’t bring outside food in, so I had to buy something or otherwise starve. I got the tuna salad. Oh the whole thing was just bad. The cucumbers were old, the tuna fish was blah, the croutons were old, and the greens were wilted. But the dressing was good! But overall, terrible and overpriced. I was very disappointed. The food on the airplanes is a thousand times better.
And here is some evidence of the food on the flights that I actually enjoy. My flight home was horrifically delayed. They did not even offer us a free cocktail or anything. But I had to eat so I got the cheese and fruit snack pack. I really like this thing. The grapes were sweet and fresh, and so were the strawberries. There were three different types of cheese cut into cubes and a few crackers. Plus, there were some juicy dried apricots. All in all, it’s not a bad deal!