New York Street Food

Food Carts Portland reviewed the PBJ Grilled Cart earlier this week – and boy does it look good!

PBJ’s Grilled was created by Shane and Keena, who moved to Portland 18 months ago from Las Vegas, with the mission of serving something unique and local.

Shane told Food Carts Portland the idea for the grilled pb&j came from outside the gates of the Oregon Country Fair. One summer, a gentleman who didn’t have a ticket was outside serving up tasty treats and viola, a food cart was born.

The sandwiches come on fresh Challah bread smeared with the peanut, almond or hazelnut butter, jam or ingredient which could include bacon, jalapenos, Nutella, bananas, honey, sea salt, chocolate chips and so much more.  For example, the Spicy Thai came with peanut butter, orange marmalade, sriracha, curry and fresh chopped basil.  Check out the full menu at pbjsgrilled.com.  It looks awesome!

PBJ’s Grilled has been open for 2 months now and is doing brisk business on NW 23rd.  Next time you are up in NW, or if you need an excuse to go shopping on 23rd, check out PBJ’s Grilled and let them know Food Carts Portland sent ya. [Food Carts Portland]

There are several upcoming festivals that may be of interest to New York Street Food readers.

In Portland, Willamette Week’s annual food cart festival, Eat Mobile, will take place on Saturday, April 24, 2010 under the Morrison Bridge at SE 3rd and Belmont.  Attendees will be able to sample from 30 food carts all in one place, for the same price it would cost to eat a full meal at one of them -$7.   All event proceeds benefit MercyCorps Northwest’s local economic development program.  In addition to a copious amount of food and beer, vendors will compete for the coveted Carty Award; judges include a panel of food luminaries in town with International Association of Culinary Professionals.  They are also looking for volunteers.  If you’re interested please email promotions@wweek.com.

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…Starchy and Husk, a new food cart in Portland that offers a selection of gourmet mac-n-cheeses.  (You had to grow up in the 70′s to really enjoy this one.)

Also in the same Portland location is Yogi-Yo (which translates to “over here” in Korean), and is a graffiti-tagged, pimped-out purple cart serving up Korean “street food.”

Both carts are located at Refuel Station North (a former auto detailing shop), bringing the number of cart options at RSN up to nine (and counting). [Eater PDX]

On March 13th in Seattle, there was a Mobile Chowdown between some of the best food trucks from Seattle and some of the best ones from Portland.  Both are great street food cities, and 3 of the vendors from Portland drove up to Seattle for this challenge.

There were several challenge categories such as burgers (Burgerville-Portland vs Gert’s BBQ-Seattle), poutine (Potato Champion-Portland vs Skillet Street Food-Seattle) and kimchi quesadillas (Koi Fusion-Portland vs Marination Mobile-Seattle), as well as other vendors serving up their best.

Anitas Crepes

You’ll have to check out the article to see who won, but it wasn’t really about the competition so much as everyone coming out to have a good time, support their favorite vendors and try out some new ones.  There are a lot more pictures and description of the event if you click through. [Serious Eats]

Marination Mobile quesadilla

Kao Samai pad thai

The Mississippi Marketplace is Portland’s latest food cart pod, by the intersection of N Mississippi and Skidmore.  You can get vegetarian sushi, sopapillas, pizza, fried-egg breakfast sandwiches, desserts, and soups there, but the rapid increase in the number of food cart vendors makes some people wonder if there are too many to survive the winter.  There has been a 25% increase in Portland food carts from 2008 to 2009 (from 370 to 461), with another 34 currently in the permit process.

Brett Burmeister, who documents the cart scene for the blog Food Carts Portland (foodcartsportland.com), believes a cart’s survival this winter will come down to “loyalty, customer base, and quality.” [Portland Mercury]

Here’s to hoping for a mild and prosperous winter for Portland’s food carts.