Portland Pod People - A Food Cart Revolution

I've written previously about how Seattle is experiencing a resurgence of food carts. They have taken our culinary scene by storm, cooking up everything from Korean-Hawaiian tacos to poutine. What I didn't understand until now is that comparing our food cart scene with Portland's is like comparing a takeover of the middle-school student council with the French revolution.

While Seattle has slowly come around to allowing street food vendors under somewhat onerous regulations, Portland has been nurturing this scene for years, with a huge and obvious benefit to civic life. I'm hoping every city in America wakes up and takes notice.

Portland has "pods" or "food courts", collections of anywhere from 2 to 10 carts gathered in parking lots or gravel-paved open spaces, in neighborhoods throughout the city. Some pods cater to downtown office lunchers while others don't open until after dark, offering up fried goodies to soak up booze. One area tempts ironic hipsters looking for grease and tiki lights while others offer fairly standard Thai, Vietnamese or Mexican offerings in a mobile setting, and another is geared to food-savvy, well traveled yupsters. Several even have tented seating areas with benches and heaters.

Any way you look at it, these cart scenes are energetic, vibrant, communal, inexpensive, and just a whole lot of fun. They dispense with all of the normal pomp and circumstance of a restaurant meal, from menu to check and just get right down to the business of serving delicious food. Although we enjoyed several fine restaurant meals in Portland, the evening we spent just bumming around from cart to cart, snacking on whatever sounded good and chatting with the proprietors was easily my favorite night of dining.

Almost every cart has serious vegetarian and vegan options. It is Portland, after all.

A few of my favorite bites: the orange-zest scented croquettes at Mono Malo Tapas, black bean and pickled cabbage arepas at Fuego de Lotus (top), and the superbly flaky empanada-like BBQ tofu savory pie at Whiffies Fried Pies (above).

For more information and a nearly definitive guide to this ever-changing scene, check out Food Carts Portland.

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LA Trip Restaurant Roundup

We just got back from a fun trip to Los Angeles, which by definition means a lot of great eats. I don't have it in me to do individual reviews for each of these restaurants, but I thought I'd at least post a roundup. Obviously you could eat for a lifetime in LA and not go to every good restaurant, but we were really happy with our choices. D.M., who is a frequent commenter on the blog and one of Sarina's dear friends did a lot of research and pointed us in great directions, and my old pals Nic and Lorna showed us some of the best Middle Eastern food we've had outside of Israel.

The address and phone info for all of the restaurants is at the very end of the post.

Our first night in town we had an early reservation at Osteria Mozza, the upscale Italian restaurant from the powerhouse trio of Nancy Silverton, Mario Batali and Joseph Bastianich on Melrose Ave. We shared a starter of magnicifiently fresh burrata with leeks. My entree was a giant ravioli filled with ricotta and a sunny-side egg that spilled into the brown butter sauce when cut. It was quite spectacular but maybe a bit underseasoned. For dessert we had bombolini (little fried donuts) with vanilla gelato, and grappa. This is definitely a treat and a dining event, but well worth the splurge.

Bookending our trip, our last meal before leaving town was right next door at Pizzeria Mozza. The pizzeria is considerably less formal and expensive than the Osteria, but man oh man the pizza. It was really a revelation. The crust was cracker thin, but somehow crispy and chewy at the same time, with not the slightest hint of sogginess. The outer rim of the crust puffed up about an inch high, but was light as a feather, filled with enormous holes like you find in great artisan bread. Which is of course the explanation - Nancy SIlverton knows a thing or two about flour, water and yeast and she's used her decades of experience to design a pizza dough unlike any other. Gotta have it. You need reservations here even for lunch, but if you go 15 minutes before they open and wait in line you could get a first-come seat at the counter.

Brunch at Cafe Vida in Pacific Palisades was pleasing. The Cafe has a light, happy neighborhood feel and the food was fresh and tasty. If you go on the weekend you'll probably have to wait a bit and arm wrestle dogs and babies for a seat, but  it will be worth it.

If you find yourself in the San Fernando Valley and in need of lunch, check out Villa Piacere. The decor was somewhat dated, but all of us were really happy with our big entree salads. LA really gets big salads in general, much more than Seattle. Probably because of all the diet nuts down here, but for whatever reason it is nice to lay into a big bowl of lettuce and veggies that look alive and carefully arranged. That is all we ate, so I can't speak to the rest of the menu. The hostess was really sweet too, obviously very proud of her restaurant.

Ok, let's talk about Middle Eastern, specifically Lebanese food. Sunnin, over on Westwood just north of Santa Monica was outrageously good. We're talking paper plates and flourescent lights here, so not much ambiance but the waiters are nice (and gruff at the same time). But man alive the food. We liked it so much we went back a second time. Hummus, tabbouleh, foul muddamas, rekakat, yogurt salad, fried cauliflower, and fatayer (a pastry filled with bitter greens and pine nuts) were all deep soul food for me. I wasn't as crazy about the mujadarah (kinda goopy) and the fried potatoes. The falafel was really decent but not world class. That fried cauliflower in particular was really something special. It wasn't battered at all, just fried to a deep golden brown and served with tahini for dipping. I would be so damn happy if a place this good opened up in Seattle. How about a glass of Jallab (date syrup and rose water on ice, topped with pine nuts)?

Chaya Venice is a hopping spot on Main Street. Wall-to-wall busy with a lot of beautiful people, and a menu that spans the globe from sushi to pasta. I was frankly a little skeptical, but I have to admit that my gnocchi was really well prepared, rich and flavorful.

Later in the week, Sarina's Dad took me to M Cafe de Chaya on Melrose, the casual dine-in or takeout place with the same owners as Chaya Venice. M Cafe's concept is modern macrobiotic food and they are doing a great job. We had a bright red quinoa and beet salad, a sweet potato salad with wasabi, a chickpea salad, a few pieces of sushi, and a tasty dairy-free chocolate pudding. Everything had a lot of flavor, and the restaurant itself has a good, high energy vibe about it. Even though I was looking out on LA traffic, it felt like a spot on the beach.

Back in Venice, make your way over to Abbot Kinney and stop at Jin Patisserie for remarkable modern Japanese pastries, tea service, and beauteous chocolates. They have a pretty little courtyard to enjoy them in. Stop in at Tortoise Life next door for a killer collection of high-design housewares, stationary, idiosyncractic bits of clothing, and fabric that looks like wood veneer.

We stayed at the Huntley Hotel in Santa Monica. The Penthouse bar on the top floor of the hotel is a fancy-pants night club when the sun sets, but in the morning it is an incredibly pretty (and rather spendy) place to have breakfast. Windows run all the way around, giving you a clear view from the Valley, all along the beach, and over to the airport and downtown. The room is painted stark white, so when you ascend the elevator before your first cup of coffee and the sun is streaming in, you kind of feel like you entered heaven. It wouldn't be surprising if Morgan Freeman showed you to your table. And the food was surprisingly tasty, what with organic eggs and carefully cut fruit plates.

So you can see we had a terrific time! Whether you love LA or love to hate it, you can definitely eat well. Here are all the details:

Review: Good Karma in Park City, Utah

My brother and I were recently in Park City for a few days of skiing. Opting for "cheap" on President's Day Weekend, we stayed well off Main St. and the resorts, over in the Prospector Square area. The hotel was kind of a dump, but it turned out we had the good fortune to be only a short walk from a really good restaurant.

I saw Good Karma on the list of nearby chow at the hotel, and thought we should try it, based solely on the name and a hunch. I figured at worst we'd be in for some hippie vegetarian food, and maybe luck would turn up something better. Luck was on our side; in fact we liked it so much we had two breakfasts and a dinner there.

When I first walked in, I was immediately struck by the good vibe of the space. It is simple and light, with a few well-placed pieces of art from India, and a stencil of the word "imagine" on a brick wall. Things just look clean and in the right place, including a view into an immaculate kitchen. Even the bathroom is cool, with a wall covered in striking close-up photos of people from around the world.

My breakfast of Huevos Rancheros confirmed the initial assessment that we were somewhere that cared what they were doing. The homemade ranchero sauce was lively and just what I wanted before a day on the hill. My brother was equally happy with his quiche.

When we returned for dinner, we had the good fortune to be waited on by co-owner Howard Moffett, so we got to learn a bit more about the restaurant's history while eating a really enjoyable meal. Howard told us that my expectation of a hippie veg place wasn't wrong, it was just a year or so late: the previous incarnation of the restaurant was right downtown in two old quonset huts, with counter service, a very laid back vibe, and food run between buildings on dim sum carts! They have come a very long way with the new space.

My favorite dishes were an amuse-bouche of butternut squash soup with chai foam, a little spicy beet salad, and the Key lime sorbet. The curries were also very tasty. We didn't even get to delve into the Japanese or Persian portions of the menu.

If I had to pick one small nit with the food, I think the dal would be a bit better if it was pureed smoother and a little thinner, so that it had more of a contrast with the curries.

Good Karma is by no means a vegetarian restaurant, but there are extensive vegetarian and vegan items on the menu so that makes it especially good for mixed groups. If you are in Park City, you gotta check it out - I promise it will be a fun and tasty experience.