Eat Adventures Portland Food Carts Tour

While food trucks have become fairly common, few cities have anything to match Portland’s food cart culture. Some carts are trailers. Some carts are stands. And most, but not all, are arranged in pods: groups of carts, perched around the edges of what used to be a parking lot, surrounding a common area outfitted with tables or tents.

No one seems to know exactly how many carts — or even how many pods — there are, but Allen Jones and Angie Johnson are a little obsessed (in good ways!) with trying them all. Happily for us, they’ve made their passion into their vocation, and you can sample the best of what they’ve discovered (and meet the people behind the food) on their Eat Adventures Portland Food Carts and Neighborhoods tour.

Allen and Angie will pick you up from any downtown hotel in their Eat Adventures van and whisk you away to a series of ever-changing “Best of the Food Carts” candidates in several of Portland’s colorful neighborhoods. We started our tour with a fresh-but-straightforward bite: a taco truck called “Koi Fusion.”

We scarfed down every bite, of course — though the taco was a bit bland, we thought, until we added some kimchee (a free garnish, but you have to ask for it to get it).

Next up: grilled cheese sandwiches. No, I’m not kidding. But put aside all thoughts of Velveeta and Wonderbread. Instead, think local cheddar, blue cheese, and marionberry jam, kissed with just a touch of habanero pepper:

Surprisingly tasty! The first big surprise, though, comes from our third stop — and teaches me a lesson, to boot.

Had Clyde and I stopped at this pod without Allen and Angie, I imagine I would have sampled wares from either the burrito cart or the hot chicken cart. But Allen and Angie steered us right to the Viking Soul Food cart, which features, well, Viking-inspired soul food.

Owners Megan and Jeremy. Photo Credit: VikingSoulFood.com

For the uninitiated, that’s a Norwegian lefse — a sort of potato flour crepe packed with either sweet or savory fillings:

Photo Credit: VikingSoulFood.com

I’d show you a photo of the one I ate, but it disappeared too quickly for me to photograph it. Suffice it to say I made short work of the Winter Wrap, which features roasted pears, Portland Creamery chèvre, walnuts, and sherry syrup, all wrapped in a lefse, of course. For me, Viking Soul Food was the standout stop on the entire tour — and I would have missed it entirely if it hadn’t been for Allen and Angie.

As the afternoon progressed, we met the sweet-spirited and passionate owners of The Egg Carton, who served us an excellent eggs Benedict (on real plates, with real silverware, no less, because owners Sarah and Tim Arkwright once watched a customer struggle with a plastic fork and said, “That ain’t right.”):

I think Clyde’s personal favorite stop, though, was a waffle cart — the Gaufre Gourmet, to be specific. But if you’re thinking we ended up with, say, a standard waffle with powdered sugar and a little Hershey’s drizzle, think again. In addition to stuffing the dough (not batter!) with tiny pearls of sugar, owners Charlene Wesler and Michael Susak are topping their waffles with treats like goat cheese mousse, drizzled honey, honey-roasted pistachios, and balsamic caramel sauce. It’s Clyde-approved:

If you’re in Portland, TripAdvisor will tell you that Eat Adventures is the underdog food tour — currently number seven on a list of thirty-one things to do in PDX. In my opinion, though, Allen and Angie’s food tour is the one to beat. Phone ’em up, climb in the van, and spend the afternoon exploring the best that Portland’s food carts have to offer. (They’re great company, too, which will make your day with them feel like an afternoon spent with old friends.) Highly recommended.