Street Food, Portland Edition

Food carts are thing in Portland. In fact, they are so much a thing in Portland, I'm surprised that they're not over (as in, "so over"). 

But maybe that's the beauty of street food - it's just too useful to be "over". The food cart fad has been growing in Portland since the late '90s; today there's something like 500 or 600 permitted food carts around town. (I'm too lazy to pin down a more precise number.) Entire parking lots have been turned into food cart food malls, with covered and heated communal eating areas and carts that have taken on the rooted permanence of mobile homes in upscale trailer parks.

When I was home in Portland, Mom and I stopped by the new Mt. Tabor food cart lot on Belmont. It covered all the major yuppie food groups: Mexican, falafel, fancy fried seafood, pan-Asian noodles, Korean/Hawaiian barbecue, Portland vegan, lattes, and the kind of sandwiches white people like. Plus a creme brulee cart. Because everyone needs one of those. 

It is also requisite (I deduced) to dedicate at least one chalkboard to listing the local farms whose meat products you "proudly serve." One of them should be Carlton Farms. Extra points for those carts serving certified humane eggs. But IFC has already covered this particular punch line.

My bottom line on the food carts: It's not about cheapness. In fact, it's hard if not impossible to eat a full meal for less than a McDonald's value meal. And at least at McDonald's you get indoor seating and (usually) a clean toilet. 

Rather, the joy is in the variety. I like the idea of being able to eat something different every day, able to trust that it will (almost) always be more than decent and that my $6-9 will line the pockets of some local and not just another faceless corporation. And what could be more Portlandian than that.