Once a year, the little brewer from Bend who could, closes off the street in front of their Pearl area brewpub, and serves up samples of their beers, along side samples of a dozen or so Portland food carts.
I have a little bit of an opinion about microbrews….. being a spoiled American occasional beer drinker. I think one day, in the distant past, a batch of beer went bad somewhere, and the brewers didn’t know what to do with it – too expensive to serve to hogs or toss out, they decided to assign in a special name, charge more money, and voila! the microbrew industry was born.
But this blog isn’t about beer, is it?
$5 got one into the brew fest, and gave one the opportunity to sample one beer, and one food. $25 gained you entry and 7 samples of same. Vendors were, for the most part, lackadaisical about collecting the beer “tokens,” so the $25 we spent initially ended up being more of a “donation” (I doubt this is designed to be a profit making event, especially as they closed the doors to new entrants rather early in the evening). In any regards, one could really sample as much beer and food as they wanted to, was my point.
Among the food carts present were old favorites like Garden State, Whiffies pies,and Grilled Cheese Grill. Mrs. Burgerdogboy, Burgerdogboy’s spawn (and appendage) and I, with a wide variety of personal tastes, to to sample most everything presented.
Pyro Pizza won me over with their charred, bricked oven slices of Margherita Pizza. Pyro is regularly at 12th and Hawthorne, so if you are heading over to the Hawthorne Street fest this weekend, check them out. I am gonna look forward to trying their pepperoni pie, which the menu touts the meat from local sausage mogul, Otto’s.
Next up for me was the poutine, Canada’s national dish, fries smothered in brown gravy (they offered a choice of meat gravy or vegetarian) topped with fresh cheese curds. Potato Champion, a cart usually parked at SE 12th and Hawthorne, dished these babys up in generous quanity, and the fries were quite tasty, tho the speed at which they had to deliver the product probablycut down on the experience a bit. I’ll give them a shot at their home base, regular readers know how much I like poutine! You might consider trying the poutine burger at the Savoy.
The Flavour Spot was offering up waffle sandwiches, with your choice of sausage innards or a maple pecan butter concoction, we tried the sweet but not the savory, and it was dandy. The Flavour Spot has a couple of locations, their original is on North Lombard This is also a menu I want to examine in greater depth.
Mrs. Burgerdogboy, a lover of all things porcine (and Korean), gave 3 thumbs up (yes, I married her in spite of that physical anomaly), to Slow and Low’s Pork Belly Sandwich with kimchi mayo. You can find Slow and Low on E Burnside.
I wasn’t so excited about the brisket and mozzarella fried pie from Whiffies. Both the filling and the crust were lacking in any kind of discernable flavor The Mrs liked the spicy garlic pork curry on rice from Mum’s Kitchen, who hangs their hat (and some South African Indian delicacies (ever been to Durban? These folks obviously have!) on N Vancouver.
And what did Burgerdogboy’s spawn and appendage say to all this? (mfmfmsmsmwwio) (sound of chewing).
Portland is food cart heaven. Aren’t we lucky to have this wide variety of cuisine, all priced inexpensively?
But if you have a craving for plain old dogs and burgers, check out our store, purveyors of all things burger and–dog related, from meats, to buns, to dozens of condiments!
Pyro Pizza
