Food superstars are not limited to serious men in white floppy hats. Some of the most influential culinary masterminds in our fine city can be found in “pods” (the spaces where several food carts park together) in nearly every neighborhood in Portland.
Blogger Brett Burnmeister, whose blog www.foodcartsportland.com covers nearly every mobile kitchen in Portland, believes we have an advantage that bigger cities don’t.
“In cities like Los Angeles and New York City, their food carts are truly mobile,” Burnmeister said. “They have to move daily, if not more than once a day. Here in Portland, while the carts are required to stay mobile, they are allowed to park for indefinite periods of time in the different pods. This allows the pods to be and grow the way they have. If every cart had to move every day, I don’t know if we would have 100-plus available daily just in downtown.”
This Saturday, these food palaces on wheels will be given even more attention than usual. Willamette Week will celebrate its third annual Eat Mobile: Portland’s Food Cart Festival under the Morrison Bridge. Together, 30 of Portland’s finest carts will come together and offer a multitude of samples to the lucky eaters who bought tickets earlier this month. Due to the enormous popularity of food carts in Portland, tickets sold out faster than you can inhale a fried pie from Whiffie’s.
Among the excellent carts present will be everyone from Addy’s Sandwich Bar (which offers concoctions like duck confit with cranberry relish and shaved cabbage) to Ziba’s Pitas, which are often paired with delicious ajvar relish.
The event will offer old favorites and new ideas alike, and Burnmeister is pumped.
“I’m coming for the extras,” Burnmeister said. “Each cart is to provide samples, but will also have items for sale that may or may not be on their normal menu. I understand The People’s Pig will be doing a whole pig that will be available for sandwiches for an additional cost.”
The menus will not be the only stars of this tasty event. Another culinary event going on in town this week (which will be just as mouth-watering but a little steep for the student budget) is the International Association of Culinary Professionals Conference, which has brought some big names to our humble little city. Willamette Week has taken advantage of this opportunity and rallied up some of the biggest names to construct a panel for the Carty Awards, which will deem one cart the most delicious of them all.
The panel consists of food celebrities galore, including Antoinette Bruno, CEO of the first-ever online food magazine www.StarChefs.com, as well as food activist Kamal Mouzawak, who has spent much of his career encouraging inhabitants of Lebanon to find a common ground they can share: food. Mouzawak also created the first farmer’s market in Beirut, which has grown tremendously over the years to over 100 members.
This week, when the streets will be stuffed with culinary excellence and everyone from meal-slinging cart-ologists to IACP geniuses, we should take a lesson from Mouzawak and remember that whether your ticket cost eight or 120 dollars (or you didn’t score one at all), we all can agree on one thing: Portland knows how to fill the belly right.