Portland street carts

Blackened burgers with bleu cheese, turmeric oil marinated catfish, broccoli rabe, copa, and fried egg salads, Stumptown coffee…these are just a few excuses for my blogging lag-time. Just back from a whirlwind street-cart-coffee-voodoo-doughnut-eating-and-yes-I-went-hiking-too adventure in my new second favorite city outside of Chicago, Portland. I’ll be posting photos and stories from my adventure over the next week or so, so please enjoy, comment, drool and then get yourself there as soon as possible. To start, I bring you Portland street carts, set up all over the city with independent vendors dolling out everything from tacos to baked potatoes and breakfast sandwiches. Asian food is big (I saw Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese and Japanese carts on the same downtown block), as is Mexican and random concepts like pulled pork sandwiches, grilled cheese and Czech cuisine. I love street cart dining, and hope Chicago can one day, somehow adopt this exciting street cart culture. I will say that the carts have funky hours (closed Sundays?), perhaps too many dishes that seem the same, and I didn’t love everything I tried (a $5 Korean taco had hardly any Korean beef stuffed inside, and an overabundance of kimchee-soaked slaw), but I pretty much ate the $4 blackened chicken sandwich with bleu cheese from Brunch Box cart in three bites, and loved the $6 curry chicken from a Thai cart. Either way—agonizing decisions aside—the carts are fun to peruse, and seem to pop up all over the city.

The People's Pig fine pork sandwiches

Swamp Shack

Brunch Box Cart..burgers and breakfast sandwiches!

Yeah, so I loved this..sign at Brunch Box burger cart

Yes you can! The black and bleu burger from Brunch Box Cart

Bro-dogs