Food Carts

Today (Thursday) we went downtown with two purposes in mind – to explore the area and to eat at a food cart or carts. For those who don’t know, Portland has an amazing assortment of food carts in various areas with many gathered downtown. These are full mobile kitchens and are not at all roach coaches. On Alder Street there must be 20 food carts with almost as many types of food. Let me just name some of the food types: Bosnian, Mexican, Japanese, Thai, Chinese, Greek, Israeli, Crepes, Mediterranean, Italian, Peruvian, American, Vegetarian, Coffee Shop, and more that I can’t remember at this point.

I tried Bosnian food at Ziba’s Pitas which had one of the longest lines and newspaper clippings praising Ziba’s food. Bosnian pita was more like a bready pierogi than typical middle eastern pita bread. I had a combination plate with 2 types of stuffed pitas -- Burek (beef, onions, potatoes) and Zeljanica (spinach, eggs, cottage cheese, sour cream) – plus sour cream cucumber salad, and ajvar (grilled vegetable sauce). It was enough food for two people for less than $6. Unfortunately, Tom had already bought a chile relleno burrito (yes the chile relleno was IN the burrito) at another cart so I didn’t have any help eating it.

The cart food experience was great and we’re going to try others while we’re here. Check out this website and you’ll get an idea about the amazing variety.(http://foodcartsportland.com/)