Food Cart Review: The Egg Carton

Review:  There are two great carts I've been to that serve breakfast food in Southeast Portland.  One is for a quick-yet-delicious meal, and the other is for something to be savored for brunch.  The first is, of course, Fried Egg I'm In Love (second review here).  The other one, the topic of this post, is The Egg Carton.

Eggs Benedict from The Egg Carton.

I've only had the Eggs Benedict here (it is, after all, my favorite breakfast food).  They have three versions, but I always have the traditional English muffin, Canadian bacon, poached egg and Hollandaise sauce.  There is a vegetarian option available.  Expect it to take 8-12 minutes, but also expect it to be good, because it is.


Geography:  The history of Eggs Benedict is complicated.  Each story for the invention of the dish conflicts with another.  I would argue that it was invented, not evolved like most other dishes.  For one thing, every early cookbook that first included the dish had somewhat different variations, but the versions seemed to occur radially from New York outward.  Most evolutions occur across a linear spatial direction.  For example, Hollandaise sauce probably started out as a fish sauce made with butter and vinegar.  As it traveled to France, it added egg yolk.  Then, people used lemon juice instead of vinegar once it got to Paris, and that's what we have today.  It spread in a southwesterly line, changing as it went.  But with Eggs Benedict, versions popped up all over the place.  For the most part, different versions occurred at a further-away place than the last few.  Also, like with most true inventions of food, there are conflicting stories on its origins, all claiming authenticity as its evidence.  But, one has to remember that authenticity is a construct.  What one person may see as "authentic" may not be so to another.  Without bias, the truth would be that both are authentic -- it just depends on the person which version is better.

Topic: Portland's Food Cart Community

So, I lost my wallet in Portland.  I was in Starbucks when I lost it (charging my phone, otherwise I would have just stuck to Ole Latte Coffee... more on that later).  I have had to deal with calling credit card agencies, the bank, and health insurance about the stuff that was in in my wallet, which may account for me being slow to update the blog.

One of the food carts I revisited deserves another review.  I have already reviewed Fried Egg I'm In Love for their delicious food, but I think I should focus on the service on this one.  How do I relate this to culinary geography?  We'll see.

Fried Egg I'm In Love on SE Hawthorne.

Review: It was my third time getting a meal at Fried Egg I'm In Love.  I walked by, and the owner greeted me.  I told him about the missing wallet, and he immediately offered me a free fried egg sandwich.  Having only six dollars with me, I accepted.  I did leave a two-dollar tip (I needed money for the bus to the train station).  This was probably the nicest food cart owner I've ever met, and I've eaten at quite a bit of carts for a non-local.

Geography: Come to think of it, most food cart owners I've met have been welcoming, happy to chat with their customers, and seem to like their job (even with the job being stressful).  Why is this?

I would say that it is because of the often-negative stigma attached to food carts spread by word-of-mouth from people in other cities.  In many other cities, people often look down on food carts due to an idea that they are unsanitary.  This could not be further from the truth, at least in Portland.  But this limits it to more of a local crowd, along with people like me who have already visited Portland a couple of times, and also major foodies who are kept up-to-date on local food trends.  In this way, food cart owners know their customers more, and thus creates a sense of community between food cart owners and customers.  It's always easier to like your job when you have that.

Food Cart Review: Halal Egyptian Food

Ful (Photo credit).

Review: Halal Egyptian Food is a cart serving (you guessed it) delicious Egyptian cuisine.  I ordered the lamb with rice.  It came with hot sauce which was extremely spicy, as it should be for truly Egyptian cuisine.  The lamb itself was also very good.  The rice was a bright yellow, probably due to being cooked with saffron.  It also came with a yogurt-cucumber sauce.

Geography: Egyptian food is often thought of and presented in the United States as a typical Middle Eastern cuisine.  Many people use the over-generalized term "Mediterranean cuisine" to describe all cuisines coming from countries with a Mediterranean coastline.  This leads people to think that all of those cuisines are more or less the same.  However, you'd be hard-pressed to find many similarities between, say, Spanish and Greek food.  Implying that all of these unique cuisines are the same is kind of an insult to those cultures, because they have had at least centuries to form, refine, and perfect their food.

Egyptian food is especially unique because of two reasons.  For one thing, they had thousands of years to form a cuisine.  Also, Egypt is bordering what most people consider to be the Levant region of the Islamic world, but is located in the Maghreb (Northern Africa).  They share quite a bit with both Maghreb cuisine and Levant cuisine.  Then they have their own unique historical cuisine dating from ancient Egypt, which also is a powerful influence.

Then there is Cairo.  It is like Egypt's New York, with a lot of influence from international cuisine.  It may be more of an influence in the future because of a rapidly growing population.

Photo credit:

1. By Abdullah Geelah (English Wiki [1]) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC-BY-SA-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons 

Food Cart Review: Thai Mango

Pad Thai, one of the more common Thai dishes (Photo credit)

Review: I've only had one thing here: the sticky rice with mango.  It was delicious, the rice was sweet without being overpowering, and the mango was great with it.  They could have put a bit more coconut sauce over it, but I didn't mind that too much.  The second time I was there, I brought two friends along, who ordered entrees (I ordered my main meal from Maine Street Lobster Company).  They really liked the food as well, and one of them orders Thai food quite a bit.  If she likes a certain Thai place, it's probably good.  I might go back sometime and order an entree myself.

Geography: Thai food is one of the more popular cuisines for food carts in Portland.  Why is that?

First of all, Portland is extremely vegetarian-friendly.  I've been to a lot of eateries in Portland, and only a select few do not accomodate vegetarians.  Even vegetarian nachos are a thing in Portland (Taqueria Lindo Michoacan has one on the menu).  With Thai food being a naturally vegetarian-friendly cuisine, it is not surprising that Portland has many Thai restaurants and food carts.  In fact, a visit to Portland is not complete without eating at one.


Photo credit:

1. By Takeaway (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Food Cart Review: Maine Street Lobster Company

Lobster roll (Photo credit)

Review: If you're in Portland, and you go to Red Lobster, you're wasting your money.  Actually, that's not a good analogy, because it really applies to any Red Lobster.  In Portland, it's especially true because of the amazing cart that is Maine Street Lobster Company.  I got a good-sized lobster slider and a cup of Boston-style (cream-based) clam chowder for ten dollars.  It was delicious.  The lobster here is shipped in from New England regularly so it is fresh.  They cook it well, too, with plenty of butter.  If you're looking for cheap lobster, go no further.


Geography: The story of lobster as food is a somewhat surprising one.  In ancient times and in Great Britain, lobster was as much of a delicacy as it is now.  In the United States, it started out differently.  At first, it was considered nothing more than cheap junk food, or bait.  It was reserved for people in poverty who could only afford lobster, and also for prison inmates.  Today, this sounds ridiculous, but back then, it was the equivalent of a Happy Meal that no one liked.

This changed with two events: the Civil War and the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad.  It became a food for soldiers in the Civil War, and became more widely accepted afterwards.  But what made it into a delicacy was the Transcontinental Railroad.  Many people in the western United States had not heard of lobster.  People going to the West Coast thought that if they served lobster to people on the West Coast, they could act as if it was a delicacy, and drive the prices sky-high.  They were right.  By the 1950s, it was considered a rich person's food instead of bait.


Photo credit:

1.   By Lee Coursey [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Food Cart Review: Fried Egg I'm In Love

Review: When one thinks of an egg breakfast sandwich, the thing that often comes to mind is some half-baked attempt at a meal with a powdered egg patty and some limp bacon and/or a greasy sausage patty, with maybe some Kraft cheese on a day-old ciabatta.  Not here.  What you get here is pure deliciousness.  I had the Huevo Mutilation (a pun based on the song "Wave of Mutilation" by the Pixies).  It is a sandwich made with two fried eggs, ham, caramelized onions, cheddar cheese, and something called "aardvark aioli", all on toasted sliced sourdough.  The owners are very friendly, and seem to really enjoy their work (they were watching a football game while they made the sandwich).


Geography: The name "breakfast sandwich" may have been coined in 1940 in The American Woman's Cookbook by Ruth Berolzheimer.  But Mrs. A. B. Marshall's Larger Cookery Book of Extra Recipes by Agnes B. Marshall, dating from 1902, has a breakfast sandwich called "Sandwiches with Watercress and Eggs".  This seems to be more of a sandwich that Fried Egg I'm In Love would serve.  Perhaps they could serve it as a special sometime.

In 1972, McDonald's bastardized breakfast sandwiches, and made it into the unimaginative sandwich we think of today.  Whether they know it or not, the folks at Fried Egg I'm In Love are doing a huge service to breakfast fans by reviving the golden days of the breakfast sandwich.

It is uncertain how the breakfast sandwich got its ultimate origin, because it comes in so many forms when done right.  I wish I had more on that, because that would contribute to the geography theme of this blog.  It is safe to say it probably originated in Europe at least, because the 1902 cookbook was made in Great Britain.  Other than that, I really can't figure it out.

Food Cart Review: Taqueria Lindo Michoacan

Barbacoa sope

Review: Taqueria Lindo Michoacan has some of the best Mexican food I've had outside of Mexico.  I ordered the super chile relleno burrito.  I could tell it was made from fresh ingredients (I believe they used cotijo cheese, but I could be mistaken).  There was just the right amount of spice, and the tortilla was definitely handmade.  The burrito itself was huge - I ate it for 3 meals.  And it was only $6.00!  I'll definitely visit again.

Geography:  Michoacan is a state in Mexico.  Checking with the owners confirmed that they were from that area, and so they included it in the name of their cart.

Like most "national" cuisines, Mexican cuisine is comprised of many regional cuisines.  The cuisine that is used in Michoacan has been called "Mexican soul food", and is rooted in the native cuisine of the Purépecha civilization.  Fish is abundant in Michoacan, and so fish is featured as one of the meats used in Taqueria Lindo Michoacan.  Many regional specialties are found in the area, but sadly, the cart is lacking in many of these.  Perhaps they believe it would be too unfamiliar with people in America to feature the delicious-sounding pollo placero, a chicken dish with potatoes and carrots, or pozole, a slightly more familiar dish said to have originated in the area.  But this is Portland we're talking about, the food capital of the western U.S.  That is, however, the only area which could be improved.  Everything else about this cart is perfect, and I recommend anyone to go there.

Food Carts of Portland, Oregon

Portland is a very unique and interesting town.  Completely insane, but in a good way.  One of the first things I saw on this trip was a man on a street corner holding a sign saying "Help - Need beer".  I'm willing to bet that you'll only see that in Portland.

One of the many other things that is different about Portland is its attitude towards food carts.  Instead of putting hefty restrictions and obstacles against food carts, the city of Portland encourages it.  As long as you can afford it, and pass frequent health inspections, you can open a food cart.  There are over 600 food carts, and the selection is vast - there are carts serving wood-fired pizza, Tuscan food, Russian food, Cuban food, carts specializing in pie, you name it.  They're also usually very affordable and good.

A photo I took of a group of carts at SW Alder & 10th.

I will be reviewing the food carts I go to while in Portland.  I will also talk about the geography of the food they serve.  Check back next time when I review Taqueria Lindo Michoacan.

Review: Coast Starlight Diner

Review:  Train food on the Amtrak is often bad.  Often, it comes in the form of a revolting-looking squished ham sandwich.  But this is not the case on the Coast Starlight, a train to and from Seattle and Los Angeles.

Okay, so the food downstairs sucks.  But the Coast Starlight Diner serves great food.  Unfortunately, it's pricey, but if you can afford it for one meal while on the train, I recommend it.

Geography:  Describing the geography of a restaurant that constantly moves between many culinary regions, and does not belong solely to any one of them?  Challenge accepted.  But because of this, we must develop a new concept in cuisine; a style of cooking defined by the transportation industry.  Transportation cuisine is a mimic of a fusion cuisine, defined by the stereotypes of the cuisines that the transit line runs through.  But it is only a mimic on a PR level, because it only caters to the stereotype cuisines of the usually-vast regions it runs through.

For example, the Coast Starlight runs through the states of California, Oregon, and Washington.  The Coast Starlight takes the cooking styles that the states are most famous for (their culinary stereotypes), and use them with various ingredients to create variations on widely-familiar dishes (burgers, omelettes, and others) that are not common to most of the areas of those states, but share widely-known cooking styles from those states.  The food is good, and reminds outsiders of those states.  But it is in no way authentic.

Topic: Does Bicycle Commuting Affect Cuisine?

Davis, a university town in the Sacramento Valley Hills culinary region of California, is one of the most bicycle-friendly towns in the state.  This attracts a lot of bicycle commuters.  The question I want to address is: do bicycle commuting trends affect cuisine?

It absolutely does.  For one thing, it helps support the popularity of local foods.  When people are hungry, often what comes to mind is "comfort food".  But what is "comfort food", exactly?  If all of you reading this blog post answered that question with the name of only one food, your answers would be widely varied.  It's usually the type of food a person sees all around them in the region they call home, and it also has to be a food that person likes.

Bicycle commuters usually can't go as far as people who commute to work in a car.  What they see around them is more constrained, localizing what they see.  This includes food.  One effect of this localization of food is that many local foods that an individual likes become comfort foods to them.  The end result is that people crave them, and local foods are more popular in the given region.  This doesn't work as much for areas with less local foods already there.  Davis, with an already-established abundance of local food in the area, is a prime example of when bike commuting does work for an area to accelerate the localization of food.

Bicycles at UC Davis (Photo credit).

Photo credit:
 
1. By Shea (Bike City) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Topic: Culinary Regions of California (Sacramento Valley Hills)

The town of Winters (Photo credit)

Cache Creek (Photo credit).

The Sacramento Valley Hills (SVH) region is comprised of western Glenn, Colusa, Yolo, and Solano Counties.

The area shown in red is the Sacramento Valley Hills culinary region.

The region is characterized by a local food trend with foods coming from the ranchlands to the northeast and produce from the Sacramento Valley immediately to the east.  Also, the San Francisco Bay culinary region has an influence that gets stronger going south within the SVH region.


Photo credits:

1. By Brian Wickstrom (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
2. By Marcia Wright (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons