Last Friday the LAD team packed up our bags and headed to NE Portland to embark on an adventurous (and surprising!) Foodie Friday.  The day began at 10:00 a.m. when we arrived at Pedal Bike Tours to meet with founder and our personal tour guide, Mr. Todd Roll.  We were fitted with our bikes and helmets and headed out to get a taste of both Pedal’s “Coffee Crawl” and “Emerging Hoods” tours.

Our first stop, Blue Gardenia Baking and Coffee Roasterie on North Mississippi.  Blue Gardenia roasts their coffee in-house and boy are their baked goods amazing! We each got an espresso and shared a few savory items – I would highly recommend the Jalapeno Cheddar Biscuit.

After Blue Gardenia, we hopped on our bikes and took off through the streets of North Portland, ridding by Sidebar, the new tasting room at the New Old Lompoc on N. Williams, and through the streets of the NE Irvington neighborhood.  Our destination, Tabla Mediterranean Bistro is on NE 28th.

We arrived at Tabla and we’re greeted by Chef Anthony Cafiero. He would be our pasta making teacher and host for the next few hours. But before we got started, Anthony freshly squeezed oranges and handed out mimosas, a perfect way to begin.

Anthony gave us each a cutting board, a bowl of flour and carton of eggs and demonstrated the steps it takes to make Tabla’s delicious pasta.  We cracked the eggs, scooped the flour, made volcanoes, stirred the gooey mix and kneaded the dough. Anthony showed us how to roll the noodles, cut them into pasta lengths and lay them out to dry.  We followed suit, some of us learning the tough lesson that you must over flour when rolling the noodles. Mine stuck together…

After the noodles were dried and cut into pieces, Anthony used our creations to make four amazing pasta dishes.  He made a simple truffle butter and parmigiano pasta; fresh English pea, lemon, and fresh ricotta pasta; mushroom, pine nuts and tarragon pasta; and a spicy pork, tomato, chili, basil, and grana padano pasta.

After we enjoyed our lunch we stumbled outside to find we were in the middle of a typical Oregon downpour. It was sunny that morning and we were on bikes! After a quick stop at Alma Chocolates we caught a break in the weather and took off on our return trip to Pedal.  We encountered some rain on the ride back, but overall the day had been a great experience as we toured the Eastside and learned how to make pasta from a very talented chef.