Fresh out of a session of wandering around my past lives, I continued my roaming in this life, and was driving down SE Foster in Portland when I spotted this gem of a market. With an odd little name, Overseas Taste is tucked off Foster in a small building with a kitschy painting on the front, and “European products” hand painted in Russian fronting the small, off-street parking lot on SE 64th Avenue. I didn’t have time to stop at that moment, but we returned on a Saturday afternoon to see what was up with this place. I do love me an old fashioned meat market. (Of the four-legged kind).
Walking in, your olfactory senses start to tango at the deep earthy small of myriad smoked meats, displayed in the counter and hanging from the ceiling.
Peruse the small selection of shelved groceries from the former SSR’s like biscuits, soup mixes, pickled vegetables and a small selection of caviar, while your are waiting for your turn at the butcher counter.
Prepare to take your time when selecting your meats, as there is plenty to choose from.
We went with at least a half-dozen selections, including Hungarian sausage and bulk bologna for me, and honest-to-goodness beef jerky and a smoked chicken thigh for Mrs. Burgerdogboy to nosh on in the car for the trip home.
Bulk bologna you say? Yes, I had been thinking about looking for some lately, in order to introduce Mrs. Burgerdogboy to the delicacy of Newfoundland, a genuine fried bologna sandwich, which can is a thick slab of meat in a fry pan or on the grill, smashed between two slices of nutritionally-deprived white bread, and decorated with mayo, mustard, and lettuce, tomato, and if you like, a slice of cheddar.
Mrs. BDB counts jerky among her personal vices, but has grown weary of the pressed, chopped, formed or extruded varieties, so we were delighted to find actual strips of beef available of the smokehouse variety at Overseas Taste.
We picked up a couple of other sausages and some double-smoked bacon as well.
This is my new favorite Eastern European market, although I regularly stop at Victor’s, on 99w in Tigard as well. Victor’s has the advantage (for us) as being both geographically close, and he also makes our favorite South African style jerky “Biltong.”
Specialty meat purveyors are making their way back into the mainstream, and Portlandians are fortunate to have many to choose from.
