124. Portland - Back to Portlandia for More Food Carts (Portland: Southwest/Downtown)

It is time to travel again! This trip involves a stop in Portland, about a week romp in Tokyo, and a two week stay in Taipei.  The first leg of the trip began last weekend with a flight to Portland to attend a wedding.  Since I had just finished writing 12 posts about Portland last month, this quick weekend trip came at the right time... yay for more posts on food from Portlandia!

Allison and I flew out of the newly remodeled Long Beach Airport on JetBlue on Saturday morning.  If you've flown on JetBlue before, you know exactly what that means... raiding the snack basket when the flight attendant swings by! When we landed it high time for lunch.  Those in-flight snacks can only hold us over for so long...

As soon as we checked into the hotel, we headed straight for the food pods at the intersection of Southwest Alder and SW 10th Avenue.  Originally, we wanted to try the famous chicken and rice at Nong's Khao Man Gai, but this location was not open on the weekend.  No worries, we quickly found the Euro Trash cart and ordered something we could not get in California... foie gras.  Duck Butter, as it is listed on the menu, is a sinfully seared piece of foie gras laying on a bed of freshly cooked potato chips dripping with garlic aioli (known as their house made Nah-Nah Chips just by itself) and the drippings of the fat foie.  I felt hunger, heaven, and a heart attack all in one bite.  Bewilderment.

While foie gras on potato chips is delicious and all, it doesn't quite make a full meal.  Just around the corner and a few carts down from Euro Trash sits the E-San Thai cart, one of the many, many carts serving Thai cuisine in Portland.  There are six Thai food carts just at the pod at Alder & 10th intersection alone.  I ordered a green curry with tofu, eggplant and other vegetables, plopped myself down on a parking curb and let the sweat drip down my face.

Allie had a hunkering for meat, so she ventured over to the Number 1 Bento cart for the galbi bento.  The flavoring was not far from what we know as Korean barbecue in LA, and for just six bucks, it was a steal.  One thing though... the food comes in a plastic container, so beware of the heat from the steaming white rice while holding the box.  Ouch!

Sitting and eating on a parking curb is no easy task, but the good food makes it all worthwhile.  We won't let the food take away from the main focus of the trip... the wedding.  Which, come to think of it... this was about the time that we dropped the food to head back to the hotel to get ready.

We clean up real nice now don't we? I kid, I kid.  These Instagram filters make us look extremely airbrushed, so they look best on IG.  Congratulations Sarah and Ray! Allie and I wish you two all the best.  Until next time, let's all get S.O.F.A.T.

ML - 20130622

Post 26.5: Vancouver - Day 1 (Dinner Substitute)

Have you ever eaten so much that you feel like you can't breathe anymore? After a morning of donuts, dim sum, and dumplings... the landfill that was my breakfast and lunch had piled so high in my stomach that I could have sworn that my esophagus was blocked, and the extra weight from all that food was pushing my lungs into my chest.  There was barely enough space left in my lungs to let any oxygen in, but there wasn't any power left in there to blow the carbon dioxide out either.  Even Albuterol would have been useless.

Hot Cheetos from the USA.

I brought these for Amanda; Canada doesn't sell Hot Cheetos!

And even after I found respite in Amanda's couch, I continued to munch on the uniquely Canadian chips that were found at Superstore.  Superstore (like Costco) carries President's Choice brand (like Kirkland Signature), and although it's just the basic of all basic brands, it was like culinary Gucci to me.  Canada is famous for having ketchup flavored chips, but they also have these flavors too:

Szechwan (Sichuan) flavored chips.

Szechwan is famous for kung pao and the peppercorn that provides a numbing spiciness.

General Tao chicken flavor.  It's Panda Express in potato chip form.

Indian tandoori barbecue flavor.

If the chips really were made from naan, that'd be pure genius.

Continuing to eat at that state of being was almost masochistic.  Okay, it was purely masochistic.  But the pungently putrid scent of the feta cheese beckoned me to continue eating chip after chip.  I was a fly... hypnotized by the smell of... well, you know.  And no matter how stinky it was... nom, nom, nom.

Greek flavored chips.  With olive and feta cheese.

Super stinky.  Super delicious.

Ketchup flavored Pringles.

They confuse the tastebuds at first but get addicting later on.

Dill pickle flavored Pringles.

Once you pop... you can definitely stop.

But no worries.  I would be quickly rescued by an intense calorie-burning activity... carrying Amanda's three-tier, strawberry mousse, chocolate cake... MADE. FROM. SCRATCH.  We were on our way to a Hawaiian-themed barbecue.  Amanda was dressed as a hula girl, and I... well, I carried the two-ton cake, so I was Superman.

All smiles. 

The master baker presents her jaw-dropping product.

I have no clue why those mini cakes were so damn heavy because the strawberry mousse was light and fluffy as hell.  Holy bujeezus.  Amanda, have you ever thought about opening your own bakery? What are you doing working at VCC?!

A stack of strawberry mousse.

Three tiers of heavenly fluffy mousse... like clouds on your tongue.

And, of course, the barbecue was really a party, so Amanda made jello shots.  Of all the colors from a box of crayons.  Festive! And slightly dangerous.

Five floors of festive fun.  The pagoda of Jello shots.

No more eating for me.  Okay, maybe just a little bit...

Next post: A Day of Japanese Meals