Cartopia Dinner with Zach

Thinking over why food carts, the outdoor food art-form here that I admire but do not engage with often.  It may be   they require the  stand-up-to-eat pose.   I'm similarly disinclined toward buffet dinners, cocktail parties.  Not much of a casual eater, I want a chair/bench and table!

We had found a place with great middle eastern food around 6th and Broadway (across from a Kettleman's bakery) but it disappeared.  We'd buy the very ample dish in the afternoon and take it home for dinner.

Between our place (it may be known as the  "West Hills") and our daughter's house in Hawthorne, there's a collection of carts known as Cartopia with benches protected by tents.  I learned their proper name not from a sign (maybe there is one) but a massive fact-stuffed blog, Food Carts: Portland. Driving home  around 11 p.m. after baby-sitting, we'd see all this action as we turned the corner from Hawthorne onto  12th.  All lit up, many young people.  What were we missing...we found out when  we visited closer to our old-fashioned foodtime, 6 p.m. 

El Bracero, a Mexican place, is the early bird opener, in fact hardly closed.  We've stopped by for delicious  vegetarian burritos--just one big enough to share.  A little later the Belgian fries cart,  Potato Champion with its Poutines via Canada, comes alive...excellent not-so-good-for-you food but you gotta do something risky once in a while.  And choices of things  to decorate the greasy things.

 I favor the remoulade but you might prefer rosemary truffle ketsup.

Knowing our grandson Zach is a burrito fan who loves to eat out, we took him there one mild evening.  Other families with kids are always part of the mix in the early hours.  But the pizza cart got his attention first.

 The fries worked for him too. He was very interested in the crepe-making (huge productions) at Perriera.  Turned out he'd had one recently and mentioned that the milkshakes were very good too.  What could we say?  We took two very, very rich Girardelli chocolate ones home to his Mom and Dad (his sisters were in bed) and split them among the five of us.

You could call our particular adventure Portland Cart-lite.  We have yet to try some of the other places at Cartopia.  One very decorated one, Yarp with its long message of mission, comes to life  after 8 p.m.  Of course, this scene is not here for our crowd; we are the outsiders and they are very polite in an offhand way.

Welcome to Portland, Oregon, Ronni & Ollie! 

Comments

[Kay Dennison]

One word: yum!!!!

[Marion]

I love the idea of a blog dedicated to the food carts of Portland. Maybe I should try to find all the food carts in Reno and do a post.

As far as eating standing..... up I'm with you I think it just leads to wolfing one's food down. I like to savor :-)

By the way.... I really enjoy your blog.

[Darlene]

Zach looks like he really enjoyed his pizza. Kids and pizza go together like a horse and carriage.

I would have opted for the Belgian fries cart. Sounds good to a potato lover.

[Hattie]

I liked the guy with the kilt. It's the manly way to wear a skirt!
There have always been carts but not the profusion you show here. An excellent idea, keeping costs down and providing food for people on the go.
Your grandson is adorable.
I'm off to do granparental duties right now.

[Anne Gibert]

If I had all that lovely food nearby I might never cook at home. I guess that's the beauty of city life. On the way home from Alaska I saw poutine on the menu a couple of times in fast food places, and I considered it, briefly. There was a whole article on it in the New Yorker a while back. But so far I have not been brave enough for the inevitable indigestion that would follow.

[Lydia]

Zach is so cute and he has great color in his face!
Cartopia did not exist when I lived in the Hawthorne district. I am going to check to see how late these carts stay open for business, and I wonder if they will be serving on June 12th - which is Rose Festival parade day. Reason I wonder is that my blogging friend-turned son in Philippines is flying in to PDX that day to visit us for a week! His flight arrives at 5:30p and we thought we might go directly to The Spaghetti Factory because it is festive but may not be a huge attraction during Rose Festival. Actually, as I write this I think we will opt for the restaurant, exactly because of that eating-while-seated thing you mentioned here. Needless to say, we'll miss the parade this year so I hope you take great pictures!

[Brenda]

I loved the pizza especially. I wish I knew the hours of all the different carts, I can't find them anywhere online. We went once and it seeemed that some of the carts were open for lunch... maybe I got that wrong. This Friday we'd like to show up to Cartopia for lunch...