- Today on "All Across Oregon," we're back in the town of Eugene.

This time we start our day off in the Market District visiting a very popular breakfast and lunch spot.

From there, a landmark Italian restaurant that spends hours a day making their own pasta, and a museum where we'll find a pair of the world's oldest shoes.

Come with us as we go all across Oregon.

(upbeat music) This episode of "All Across Oregon" is made possible in part by John Warekois, CPA, tax professional, and profit builder in Southern Oregon and Northern California, Superior Athletic Club, owned and operated for over 40 years with three convenient locations, and Travel Southern Oregon.

Travel Southern Oregon supports a diverse, thriving, and sustainable visitor economy to create a better life for all our region's residents.

Visit Southern Oregon.

Do something great.

(calm music) We start our day with a super-popular breakfast and lunch spot in Eugene's Market District.

I want you to meet Josh, owner and operator of Morning Glory restaurant.

Wait till you see what they have prepped out for us.

The foods, the pastries, the coffee, the atmosphere, you're gonna absolutely love this place.

(upbeat music) So what do you got going for us today?

- Well, we are gonna try some pastries, whichever you would like.

We've tapped out a little bit there, but we still have all our fresh in-house pastries.

We're a from-scratch kitchen.

We got a few things prepared for ya that we're working on right now.

- Nice, nice.

- You wanna come back?

We can check out- - Yeah, you know, let's have them check it out.

Guys, go ahead.

You go, you go.

(upbeat music) This place is cool, man!

This place is so cool.

I love it.

The energy's like off the chart when you walk in.

- Yeah, man, we got a amazing group of people here.

These guys work their butts off, and we couldn't ask for a more loyal group of people, man.

It's amazing, it really is.

- You could tell they're all happy.

They're all happy to be here.

You must be a good guy.

- (laughs) We do a lot of business through here, so.

- Okay, 83's in the window.

Let's go, people!

Let's find another gear.

Let's go!

You got this.

Come on.

(upbeat music) Juliana's gonna get us caffeinated.

- Yes.

- Caffeinated.

- Do you want her to make you a special chai?

- Ooh!

- Caffeinated?

- I don't even know when I had a chai last.

Oh, I do.

It was Newport we had the chai.

Now we get to have a chai right here in Eugene.

So, 13 years, right?

13.

- Yeah, yeah, we're about to finish 13 years.

Start our 14th on January 1st.

- 7:00 to 3:30, this is what it's like.

- 7:30 to 3:30, yeah, we stay hopping.

We have a really great customer base, super-loyal regulars.

We get a lot of people from out of town with our proximity to the trains and the hotels.

- Yeah, the train, you could throw a rock at the train.

- Yeah, man.

- Saw that, and that just came through while we were outside.

I'm telling you, the energy here, you just gotta be here.

(upbeat music) Oh, oat milk.

Thank you.

- Yes.

- Thank you.

- [Juliana] I figured dairy might be... (chuckles) - Thank you.

- [Juliana] Maybe not the thing.

- My goodness, you've gotta smell.

I smell the peanut stir fry there.

This is a breakfast item?

No, lunch.

- This is our lunch, yeah.

I got a couple of breakfast things coming, too.

- This is brunch.

- But these are some of our popular dishes here.

- Well, I'm gonna follow you like a- - Okay, let's go outside.

- hungry little puppy outside.

(lively music) This is your peanut stir fry super-lucky-something noodle.

Peanut stir fry, just enjoy it, sir.

- Thank you.

- Just enjoy your dish.

Are these Brussels?

No, that's zucchini, tofu.

- Yep.

- What's the noodle?

- That's like a wide rice noodle.

- Oh, man.

- Got a tiny bit of heat in the peanut sauce.

We're a from-scratch kitchen, so everything we make, everything we can we make in-house.

- I love this peanut butter flavor in it.

- Isn't that good?

- It's just right.

It's not overpowering, it's- - Yep, a little apple cider vinegar, some crushed chiles, yeah.

- I love the fact that the, is this zucchini?

- Yep, yeah.

- You got the zucchini, and it is nice and firm.

The tofu is, I love tofu like this.

It's not soft.

It's not too hard.

- Yep.

- And this is all done in a skillet?

Then you bake it, obviously.

- Nope, nope, we do it in the pan.

That's one of the things, you know, the texture of it.

- Where did this idea come from, this one?

Do you know?

- I mean- - Did you make it up?

- Yeah, so a lot of the food, you know, I worked in a number of restaurants throughout the years, but also when I was a younger man, I traveled a lot.

You know, I got a lot of inspiration for some of the dishes from like just a lot of street food, you know, I mean- - The best.

- Like food carts.

I mean, you find the right places, and there's some of them in Eugene, but traveling around, you never know what you're gonna get.

And when you get it, you go back over and over as much as you can.

- Oh, yeah.

- Yeah, yeah, you know.

- And this right here, I would be here every day for this, every day.

(lively music) - [Josh] So every month I rotate a new menu with specials, too.

- Of course you do.

Of course you do.

- So I have six things, and this is our pumpkin waffle.

So we make a, like a pumpkin waffle batter.

And then this is a vegan cream cheese.

And then I candy, I blanch and candy some- - For your side.

- Some nuts, walnuts.

- You candy some walnuts.

- So they're salted.

- A little brown sugar.

- Salted walnuts, yeah, brown sugar, a little cane sugar.

- Yep, yep, yep, breakfast is set.

Oh, my goodness, oh, my goodness, that pumpkin.

- Yeah, just enough, you know?

Doesn't even need the syrup, really, but- - You don't need the syrup.

Don't worry, all this food is not going to waste.

This food is getting eaten.

- Coming with you guys.

- It's coming with us, okay?

So if you're watching it, "Oh, he's gonna waste that," oh, no, oh, no, no, 'cause I have plenty of stores around here to go buy some sweatpants to drive home in, I'm set.

- These are pretty interesting.

We're a vegetarian restaurant.

So this is something that we call soysage patties.

- Soysage.

(laughs) - They're made from, so soysage sounds like sausage, but- - Sausage, kinda like a New York sausage.

- There's actually a reason.

So we make a spice mix that's pretty heavy on the sage, and we make our own soy milk here.

So when we make our own soy milk, we take those curds after they've been processed- - Yep, yep, yep.

- And drain the milk out, and then we save the curd and reuse them in these soysages.

- So this is from the curds?

- Mm-hmm, so it's the curds.

It's, you know, a bunch of other spices and ingredients.

- Oh, yeah.

- But it's got a really nice savory thing, and it gives people a little something.

You know, we don't try and replicate meat here, but we do try and like- - But why not?

- keep things sweet and savory and just like real flavorful, you know?

- Spicy.

- So vegan food, vegan and vegetarian, you just, you really have to, you really have to be willing to play with your spices, you know, like to kinda find those ways to keep things interesting for people.

- Yes, there's no shortage of interesting on this table.

Man, you, Josh, you have to put out some serious food out here.

- Yeah, man, yeah.

We're really happy with the product we put out.

This is our 3-Fingered Jack Omelette.

It's got onions, green chiles, and seasoned tempeh inside.

It's got, this is our, we call it scream.

It's a tofu sour cream, some fresh pico de gallo that we make in-house, glory potatoes.

This is banana bread that we make in-house, some jack cheese and eggs.

And this one is actually eggs, so.

- Cool, and I got some, a little bit of the pico de gallo.

Oh, my goodness!

Oh, my goodness, okay.

- And that's our banana bread we make in-house.

- Homemade banana bread, did you make this today at 4:00 AM?

- They make it, my baker made it last night about midnight.

- Okay, guys, listen, don't touch my banana bread.

This comes with me home.

- Yeah?

- Are you kidding me?

- Doing it?

- Are you kidding?

- All right, man.

- There's a reason why there's a line out the door.

- Yeah?

Well, we've worked really hard for that.

- Can we just stop for today?

Can we just, can we just stop?

Just crazy.

Well, Josh, thank you.

- Yeah.

- Everything is absolutely fantastic.

Everything here was so unique.

Everything had its own flavor profile, from the desserts to the eggs to that peanut dish, come on.

What a great time we had at Morning Glory restaurant.

The Market District is so cool.

There's so many things to do.

There's so much action and restaurants and hotels and shops, a train station, historical landmarks.

Now we'll head across town to a cuisine that's close to my heart.

Meet Gianni, co-owner of Beppe and Gianni's Italian restaurant.

- Well, thanks for coming to our restaurant.

This is Beppe and Gianni's Trattoria.

My partner, Beppe, is not here right now, but we've been in this location for the last 25 years, cooking Italian food in the Eugene community for over 40.

It's a family-run business.

Beppe's daughter works here.

My head chef has been with us since day one, so 25 years.

And we're just putting out good Italian Sicilian food.

My partner's full-blooded Sicilian.

Myself and my wife travel to Italy at least every other year.

So I've probably been to Italy 30 times already in my lifetime.

- Gianni, that's amazing!

- Yeah.

- That's great!

- So we go over, we do research.

My partner is the wine buyer here, so he's got a really good palate on picking out good Italian wines.

If you come in, you'll see our wine list is predominantly Italian.

There's a little bit of California, a little bit of Oregon, 'cause- - [Vinny] Yeah, of course.

- Our food is all homemade.

You know, we make our pastas here in-house.

We'll go back and show you us making homemade pasta.

Our seafood and our meat, we source from local purveyors here in town.

A local fishmonger that's been in the community for a hundred years is our fishmonger that we pick up fish every day so we don't have to bring it in and let it sit.

- Right.

- We get the exact amount of fish that we need for each day, pick it up.

- [Vinny] Impressive.

- So we keep it fresh, keep it good, and try and keep it authentic but keep our customers happy.

- Well, it smells authentic in here.

It looks authentic.

I can't wait to taste it.

But I could not come to a town and know that there's a landmark Italian restaurant and not be here, so here we are.

- Yeah!

- I can see your wine cellar right there.

- Yep.

- I love it.

- We can head back, I can show you the wine cellar.

I can show you our pasta, making our pastas, one of our signature dishes, and then we'll cook some up and eat it.

- Love it.

Let's do it.

- All right.

- Let's do it.

- So we got our wine room in here.

This is Beppe's, little cavern of love, hundreds of varietals.

- Look at this 2009 Barolo!

Holy mackerel!

- Yeah, we run the gamut from $40 bottles of wine to $300 bottles of wine, any tastes that anybody wants.

- This reminds me of my family and in the garage, the homemade setup, I love it.

- We don't need to have it custom built.

They make these nice tiles, and we just bought 'em and stacked 'em, and they do a really good job of maintaining temperature that we wanted to have.

(romantic Italian music) This is one of our pasta chefs, Daniel.

So what we're making here are called capelli de vescovo.

They're bishop's caps is what that translates into.

- All right.

- So it's a fresh homemade pasta, and the filling is gonna be ricotta, Swiss chard, and pancetta, a little bit of nutmeg.

- Oh, my goodness, really.

- And then each one of these will be hand-folded.

Then we'll cook 'em up with just a very simple traditional brown butter sage sauce, top it with some fresh Parmesan cheese, and you go from there.

- Now we're talking, buddy.

Man, a little egg wash.

So how many hours a day are you making pasta?

- Well, it depends, anywhere from about five to nine.

- Five to nine hours?

- [Gianni] Yeah, a day.

- You're a monster.

You're a beast.

- Fresh pasta, that's what it takes.

- That is what it takes.

- You can't skimp on it.

It's a labor-intensive thing, but what we found is that the quality of the product is just so much better than anything you can buy that's prepackaged or pre-made.

- So but for the most part, you're making it for the day.

- Yeah, exactly, what we would hope is that we would make exactly the amount that we need for tonight, and then he comes in and starts fresh tomorrow.

- [Vinny] I'm gonna try to do one of those right with you, Danny.

- [Gianni] Oh, yeah, let him try.

- I'm gonna do one right there with you.

- [Daniel] There we go.

- All right, and so when there's pasta comes out like it's not supposed, like it's leaks out like that, you could just blame me, okay?

- [Daniel] Sure, yeah.

- Wait a second, wait.

Now put, let's compare these two.

- [Vinny] Okay, ready?

There you go.

- So there's Daniel's, there's Vinny's.

- [Vinny] Well, yeah, but I'm talking.

- Yeah.

- So I have an excuse.

- Yeah.

- Okay, okay, look.

Hey, I'll do another one here.

- There you go.

- I'll do another one.

- [Gianni] There, now you got it.

- [Vinny] Now I got it, okay?

There.

- [Gianni] 3,000 more, and I'll give you a- - A T-shirt?

Do I get a- - You'll be 3.0.

- Do I get a Beppe and Gianni T-shirt?

- Yeah!

- Hey, thanks, buddy.

- Hey, thank you, yeah.

- Thank you.

Thanks for doing that for us.

I really appreciate your hard work, man.

Thank you.

All right, now we're gonna go eat some.

- There we go.

(calm music) This is our line.

So I mean, it's small.

We got three guys that'll work here.

So you guys ready to, you want some cooking?

- Yeah, you ready?

Are you ready to make some pasta at Beppe and Gianni's?

All right.

- All right, so we got the pasta that we just made in the back.

- Okay.

- We're gonna dump that in there.

That's gonna take three, maybe four minutes at the most.

And then I've got a brown butter sage here, very simple, that we've made up before.

That's gonna go in that pot.

We'll heat that up, throw it in, hit it with some Parmesan.

- [Vinny] Holy simplicity.

- Yes, that's right.

- There you go.

- And so that's what we're doing.

So these are getting pretty close, one more minute.

So I'll start heating up my sauce here.

- Oh, you know what?

It smells so good.

It's like just being home.

- Yeah, yeah.

- What a nice place to take a break right here in an Italian kitchen.

(chuckles) Oh, man, this is great.

- Yeah, and we're a working kitchen, you know.

It's not, you see char on our pots and on the bottom of our sautes.

They're not all brand new.

- It's okay.

It's a beautiful thing.

- They've been there for a long time, but they serve the purpose.

- [Vinny] No, I hear ya.

I hear ya.

Beautiful.

- [Gianni] Yeah, yeah.

- [Vinny] Beautiful.

- That'll go on a plate.

- So simple.

- We'll put it on a little Parmesan cheese over the top.

We'll go out front.

I'll pour you a glass of wine and let you taste it.

- You, too.

- [Gianni] All right, give it a shot.

See if this is something that you might like.

- Might like?

Please.

This is a beautiful thing right here, mm.

Oh, yeah, I gotta go give Danieli another hug.

- There you go.

This is one of the dishes that when we have true Italians come to town, this is the one they order, and they say this reminds 'em of home.

Light, delicate.

- Oh, and that butter sage.

I can sit here all day, guys.

I'm sorry.

I know you want some.

(chuckles) - Yeah, the crew is drooling.

There you go, my friend.

- Impressive.

- Thank you.

- Impressive and simple, and the flavor profile is incredible.

I got one word, respect.

The hours that it takes to make these pastas and these sauces and all the work that goes behind that one plate that you receive at the table.

And the passion that these owners have to have to do this, for the wine selection, the foods, go see Beppe and Gianni's if you're in Eugene, it's a must.

Now, here's a great place to visit when you're spending the day here in Eugene, the Museum of Natural and Cultural History.

A museum by definition is an institution dedicated to displaying and preserving culturally significant objects.

The purpose of modern museums is to collect, preserve, interpret, and display objects of artistic, cultural, or scientific significance for the study and education of the public.

Museums are above all storehouses of knowledge.

And that's exactly how we're finishing our day today.

We're gonna get some knowledge.

This is Lexie Briggs, and she'll be our guide today.

- This is the Museum of Natural and Cultural History here on the campus of the University of Oregon.

We've been a part of the University of Oregon almost as long as the University of Oregon has been around, and we are the place where all kinds of stuff happens.

We connect to each other, we learn about our communities, and we learn about all of Oregon from the people who lived here long, long ago to the people who are living here now to the communities who still are around and the geology and the history and the all, everything.

- So can we just take a tour?

Can we see what- - Yeah!

- We'll just follow you.

- This is Oregon, Where Past Is Present.

This is where we have our archeological area.

I mean, the first thing you wanna see is the world's oldest shoes.

- [Vinny] Yeah, for real, the world's oldest shoes.

- For real the world's oldest shoes.

They're not from China, they're not from India.

We figure people were wearing shoes before this, but these shoes are more than 9,000 years old.

- [Vinny] What?

- [Lexie] Yeah, and if you think about like 2,000 years ago was about when like Roman times were happening.

- Sure, that's right.

- 4,000 years ago, roughly, that was- - Moses and everybody.

Yeah, that's right.

- Yeah, exactly.

And the pyramids and things.

This is 9,000 years ago or 10,000 years ago, and that's even further back.

And then also we have ancient poop.

- Ancient poop?

- Ancient poop, yeah, so we did some- - Hey, these old shoes says Nike on them.

They've been around that long?

No, I'm just kidding.

(laughs) It says Nike, but they just spelled different.

- Yeah, okay.

(laughs) - Okay, all right.

Okay, now we're gonna check out some old poop.

- Old poop, yeah, this is the evidence that we have that people were really here that long ago.

This is 14,000 years old.

Well, this piece is approximately 13,000 years old.

We've found stuff that is as old as 14,000 years.

And it's basically really, really, really old dried poop.

- [Vinny] Yeah, coprolite.

- [Lexie] Exactly, coprolite.

- Next time someone tells me a story, I'll say, you're so full of coprolite.

(laughs) - Exactly, yeah, yeah.

It's been there a while.

- That's ancient poop.

- It's been there a while.

- That's crazy!

- You can tell a lot about people based on like what their diet was.

- Vegetarian, guaranteed, right?

- (laughs) Not necessarily.

- Oh, okay, I was just wondering.

- Not necessarily, but definitely not what people would call the paleo diet nowadays.

- Right, okay.

- People ate a lot of plants back then.

- Yes, they did.

- A lot of seeds.

- Yep.

- A lot of, you know, small local animals, yep, all kinds of stuff, so.

- So I gotta ask, is this Oregon poop?

- This is Oregon poop.

- [Vinny] Wow, okay.

- Yeah, everything in here is Oregon based.

- Well, let's see what else we got.

(upbeat music) - So one of my favorite things here is this children's sandal, which is, you can see it's like fuzzy.

- Rabbit.

- It's got rabbit fur in it.

- Yep.

- Which is just something that's so cool, like to think, you know, I feel like that really connects us to the people who lived back then, right, they had- - Yeah, Mom, Dad took care of their kids.

- Right, they wanted their kid to be warm and comfortable.

And you think about bundling your kid up in a car seat or you know, tucking 'em in at night.

- Yeah, sure.

- Same thing, right?

- Same thing, so look at that sagebrush and rabbit fur.

Very cool, look at that.

(upbeat music) - One of the great things about this area is that we have some things, these technologies and these ways that people were building and weaving things together lasted and have lasted for so long.

Like, people still are using the same techniques, the same materials, the same ways of doing things.

Some of these baskets in this case, were made in the past 10 years, and some of them were, you know, a thousand years old, basically.

Maybe not a thousand years in this case particularly, but same- - Right, right.

- The same technology is still happening here.

- [Vinny] Oh, look at this!

- This is a plank house.

- This is actually for living in.

- Yeah, this would be like on the South Coast.

People would live in these plank houses.

And this is a smaller version.

This is not like, this is a mini-sized one.

But this is a similar, like, it was made the same way that people would've made larger plank houses.

- [Vinny] This is before the mill times.

- Yeah, they did it without these power tools that we have nowadays but still did it in a way that worked really well.

- Wow!

Very cool.

- [Lexie] Yeah.

(upbeat music) - So here is our Explore Oregon.

This is another permanent area exhibit.

- This is, now, this is what I'm talking about right here.

- Stuff that we have, we have one of the larger collections of oreodonts in the world.

Oreodonts are something that doesn't exist anymore.

It was a ice age creature.

It might've looked a little bit like a sheep or a pig or something like that, but it has these like- - [Vinny] I can see the picture of it right there.

- [Lexie] Teeth, yeah.

- Did you ever find the body parts to 'em, too?

- Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah.

- You did?

Not just the skull.

- Not just the skull.

Yep, we've got full bodies.

And we have, they were all over Oregon.

Now, Oregon was underwater for most of the age of dinosaurs.

So we don't have a lot of dinosaur bones in Oregon.

It's just the truth.

We do have this pterosaur.

So we say it flew out over the ocean, fell into the water.

This is a replica- - What?

- But we have some real pterosaur bones.

But yeah, this is a cool sloth.

And what we have, so this is the real fossil.

This is the leg fossil here.

It's the femur.

- Wow.

- So from, this bone from a sloth.

- Okay, I thought sloths were like this big, but that's- - Not back in the day, no.

- That's insane.

- And these guys were nine feet tall, and they're actually the reason probably that we have avocados now.

You look at an avocado.

What ate an avocado?

What was big enough to eat an avocado and spread their seeds?

- Okay, okay.

- The sloths, yeah.

And they're actually, they were pretty fast, and they coexisted with humans.

There have been places where people have found sloth footprints with human footprints inside of them.

This is a spike-toothed salmon.

We found these fossilized salmon skulls, and the first ones that we found, they were squished from the top down.

And we saw that they had these teeth, but we didn't know how the teeth were oriented.

So we figured, you know, you think about salmon today, they have that kind of hook on their- - Yes.

- We thought, all right, they must be like a saber tooth, like the cat, right?

Turns out we found another skull that was, and several other skulls that were not squished from the top down.

Those teeth actually come out from the side.

So we figured those were used as like- - Wow!

- And this is about the size that they were or would've been.

It was, they were big fellas.

- Yeah, that's a big fish.

- I mean, salmon is a big fish, but this is a real big fish.

- That's a real big fish.

All right, saber-toothed salmon, whoo-hoo.

(upbeat music) - [Lexie] This is a dinosaur toe bone.

- [Vinny] I would've never guessed that.

- Yep, right.

It was an ornithopod dinosaur.

It probably died somewhere on the shore, bloated up, floated into the ocean, and sank.

And then that's why it's here in Oregon.

- Wow!

- Yeah.

- That's how we feel right now, like we're all bloated up.

We've been eating all day.

All these, Eugene has a ton of amazing restaurants.

- Amazing restaurants, yeah.

- I feel like I could be bloated up and float and end up somewhere else, and they'd find me.

Oh yeah, they definitely ate seeds.

(laughing) I'm sorry.

They look like there's little seeds in there.

Thank you for spending another day with us in Eugene.

I hope you enjoy these places as much as we did.

From the breakfast to the pasta to the museum, we had a really nice day, and I can't wait to get back up here and see everyone again real soon.

We'll see you next time as we go all across Oregon.

(upbeat music) This episode of "All Across Oregon" is made possible in part by John Warekois, CPA, tax professional, and profit builder in Southern Oregon and Northern California, Superior Athletic Club, owned and operated for over 40 years with three convenient locations, and Travel Southern Oregon.

Travel Southern Oregon supports a diverse, thriving, and sustainable visitor economy to create a better life for all our region's residents.

Visit Southern Oregon.

Do something great.

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