It's not really Vancouver's fault. The city longs for eternal youth. It refuses to mature and embrace the heritage that is all too apparent, preferring instead to tear down that which is of any cultural relevance and fill it with yet another modern, new condo. It's progress they say. Rubbish, we say. This becomes crystal clear in the face of comparison when you visit a city of similar size and standing.
Portland, Oregon, while not a large city, has oodles of culture, heritage and a sense of embracing that which works from the 100+ year old Jake's crawfish restaurant to the 200 food carts that dot the Downtown core. True, it's older than Vancouver, more in the self confident stride of young adulthood than the chaotic, misunderstood throes of adolescence, but it listens to and knows what people really want and need.
Unlike Vancouver's 30 or so carts which are so spaced apart as to require a few hours to navigate, many of Portland's inner city parking lots are full of them - a mini cart empire often open until 3 or 4am to feed the hungry post -pub and club crowds.
One of these little foodie Heavens is situated on W 9th and Alder and another on W 10th and Alder. Each small lot is home to more than 25 carts, ranging from such diverse cuisines as Ethiopian to Polish. Even through the dark December drizzle, many people ascended upon the 'cartopias' at 1pm, possibly from the office blocks surrounding the area or just hungry locals or tourists, like us.
What immediately strikes you about these carts is the authenticity, the lack of concept or a local celebrity chef touting his latest idea. These carts are run by people whose best opportunity to make a living lies in cooking and selling the food they know best from home and the prices reflect this also. Instead of paying $12 for fish and chips, expect to pay around $6 for a large portion of stir fried chicken, basil and green beans with rice. Of course the competition helps keep the prices so low, but the quality is never compromised.
We had plans. We wanted to visit as many carts as possible, sharing a little of this and a little of that from each one, sampling as many different cuisines as possible, maybe a wat curry and injera from the Ethiopian stand, a perogi, full of mashed potato and cheese from the Polish and of course, some of the more famous such as Nong's khao man gai (pictured 2 images above), which offers only one dish, braised chicken with a spicy sauce, rice and broth so revered she often sells out in a matter of hours. But, like so many plans laid on shaky ground, ours fell apart.
We settled on starting with the Thai factory, unassuming, (which most of them are), but with an impressive pictured menu of a startling variety. I ordered stir fried chicken with Thai basil, chili, fish sauce and green beans with steamed Jasmine rice to accompany. An awkward heart-stopping moment followed as Neil fished around in his pocket for cash and looked grave as he thought he had none. Luckily, exactly the right money was found ($6) and I paid without any embarrassing 'do you take credit cards?' moment. We feasted on our lunch, adding the 3 different types of chili sauce to mix with the thin, salty, sweet liquid to create a taste to make our sinuses buzz and then...we were full, really full. The thought of going to a bank to get cash in the now pouring rain, coming back and ordering more unwanted food was just too much and so our Portland food cart adventure was pathetically over. No interesting Ethiopian food, no perogies, no khao man gai, (it was bloody closed anyway), just one Thai dish that was very, very good none the less.
So, unlike Vancouver, whose food carts seem more akin to a wandering tasting menu, Portland's are actually designed to offer food to fill you up, (see below). Maybe I'm being a little unfair to compare Portland to Vancouver, as it is famous for these little cart cities, even more so than say, New York, LA or Seattle, but I can certainly compare the portion sizes, quality and prices. To return full circle to my original comment, it's not really Vancouver's fault, it's the child like naivety that everything must be trendy and have the WOW factor, rather than just offer good food. I believe that to get a food cart license in Vancouver, you must present an idea and wade through more red tape than is required for getting a work visa.
A new year is here, hopefully this Summer will see lots of new, exciting places to eat on the streets and if not, then we will make the journey to Portland once more and this time eat at the carts for breakfast, lunch and dinner and check that Nong's is open.
PS. We revisited Pok Pok too, but were reluctant to wait for the 2 hours we were quoted for a table and also ate at Olympic Provisions, an up and coming rock star of the food world.
Some other places we visited in Portland you may be interested in:
Buffalo Exchange clothes shop
2 comments:
I thought the Amblers may have enjoyed some British pints and pipe smoking in Kells cigar lounge - no?
If you remember Dave, pipe smoking was inexplicably not allowed, whereas stinky cigar smoking was! Neil drank a lot of IPA while there, which is British in a sense.
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