Steven Shomler: Portland Food Cart Stories: Behind the Scenes with the City's Culinary Entrepreneurs, The History Press, 208 pages.
It took awhile for Portland writer Steven Shomler to turn his attention to his city's food cart culture but once he did he was hooked.
A few years ago he started a website, portlandfoodcartadventures. com, and in April he published a new book, Portland Food Cart Stories: Behind the Scenes with the
City's Culinary Entrepreneurs. Shomler spoke to the North Shore News about his book and the current scene which boasts as many as 500 carts in operation on any given day throughout the city.
North Shore News: How did you get involved with the food carts?
Steven Shomler: I moved to Portland in 2004 and in the fall of 2010 a friend of mine Adam made me go to a food cart. We went to the Portland Soup Company and I had a cold gazpacho soup and an incredible sandwich which kind of blew my mind. The very next Friday we went to Lardo - Lardo was a food cart and is now one of the most amazing restaurants in Portland. It was started by a culinary school-trained chef who had lots of success and kind of burned out. He moved to Portland just to have fun with a food cart and it kind of grew from there. Sitting in the food cart pod on that day I said to Adam,
'We've got to start a food cart website and tell other idiots like me who have lived in Portland for a long time and have never been they need to go.' Fast forward to a year later I started researching in the winter of 2011 and started the website January 1.
North Shore News: You describe yourself as a food cart fan.
Steven Shomler: I don't think it's really fair to describe myself as a critic - these days I say I'm more of a food writer based out of Portland. Part of the reason I don't say I'm a critic is that if I don't like the food that is at a food cart nobody will ever know I was there. I don't need to ruin what they are trying to do or trying to accomplish. That's just not who I am. I'm a huge fan of food carts and when I find one I love and I think the food is amazing and the stories are great I write about it and I tell my friends and fans to go to this one and check it out because it's fantastic.
North Shore News: How did the book come about? Is that an extension of what you do on your website? Steven Shomler: I tell the stories about the owners of the food carts that I love. It's more about them as business owners. Why are they here? Why in Portland? Why that menu? How did they get here? Why are these people here doing this amazing food? North Shore News: The food cart culture in Portland is certainly unique.
Steven Shomler: A food cart in Portland is a food truck almost anywhere else. We call them carts, they're actually food trucks, in Austin, Texas they call them trailers. One difference that Portland has that most of the rest of the country doesn't is that our contraption or whatever you call it stays in one place most of the time year-round. In fact one of the challenges that people have when they fall in love with food carts is that they say, 'Oh I want that truck to come to my wedding.' The vast majority of Portland food carts are not mobile, they cannot go to your wedding. They cannot be hauled around. They are there 24/7 seven days a week.
North Shore News: Your book is a snapshot of the Portland food cart scene now - can you talk about one of the success stories in the book?
Steven Shomler: I profile Sean and McKinze, they are a wonderful couple that grew up in Iowa the heartland of America. They wanted to see the world and the best way they could do that was through the peace corps. They signed up and ended up going to the country of Georgia. They fell in love with the food and the people and when their couple of years with the peace corps was up they recalled visiting Portland on vacation and they'd seen the food carts and decided to open a food cart selling Georgian cuisine. They learned just living in the country and from their host families and opened a food cart here and have done phenomenally well. Their dish khachapuri - salty fried bread with melted cheese inside - is fantastic. Give me a hockey playoff game, a six-pack of beer and a plate of khachapuri and I will be a happy man. They are at Ninth and Alder downtown. Ninth and Alder has about 60 or 70 carts in it all stacked right next to each other and in the downtown pods you eat standing up.
There's two kinds of pods in Portland - there's the downtown pods where you eat standing up or if you happen to work downtown you take the food back to your office. The other kind of pods are neighbourhood pods where they have covered seating and walls that come down in the dead of winter to keep you warm. It's two very different experiences the neighbourhood pods and the downtown pods. I love both.
North Shore News: A couple of pods are apparently disappearing to development this year.
Steven Shomler: Yes they are. Cartopia, a very popular pod here at 12th and Hawthorne, is probably going to close down at the end of October when its lease has run out and it becomes a 27-unit apartment complex. But I don't think the sky is falling on the Portland food cart scene. I know three pods that are planning to open. I'm very sad to see Cartopia go - I hope they have an amazing summer. Anyone who comes from Vancouver to Portland this summer needs to go on a Friday or Saturday night at midnight - it's an amazing fun scene.
North Shore News: What's the experience been opening pods in neighbourhoods? Has there been any nimbyism (not in my backyard) sentiment?
Steven Shomler: Not that I have ever heard of. When D-Street Noshery closed at 33rd and Division the neighbourhood was very disappointed. Some people went to the hearing a couple of years ago and said, 'Hey let's not put in the condos.' Koi Fusion had a cart at D-Street in that pod just a couple of blocks from where they just opened their first brick and mortar on 30th. They've had T-shirts printed
North Shore News: What pods would you recommend this summer?
Steven Shomler: A pod I really like if you want to check out the neighbourhood experience is Alberta and 23rd - that's an amazing pod. I tend to prefer the neighbourhood pods because I can take friends and we can sit down and eat. There's the Cheese Plate PDX there that has amazing cheeses, grilled cheese sandwiches and things for my friends who are vegans and don't see the beauty of bacon like I do.
You've got The Sugar Shop which has incredible desserts they bake with booze. I had a coconut porter float there on Sunday and it was just amazing. You have the Hoppy Camper which is a food cart that sells only beer. It's fun, you can sit at the tables in the shade - it's a great experience.
Belmont and 42nd is a fantastic pod. Carts on Foster, at 52nd and Foster, is a great pod with a fun little bar pod Bar PDX - they have taps with really good quality local Oregon brews. A larger fun pod, it's a different experience, is Cartlandia out on 82nd. They just opened a natural enclosed bar there, The Blue Room, and one of the prominent carts there is Main Street Lobster and you can get authentic lobster rolls right there in Portland.
The other thing visitors need to do is make sure they check out some downtown carts: Ninth and Alder is a good one, Third and Stark is a really fun pod - there's a Pulehu Pizza run by a gentlemen who grew up in France who learned to grill pizzas on a grill in Hawaii and now does amazing Hawaiian grilled pizzas right there at Third and Stark.
You've got Mama Chow's Kitchen - Jeff Chow moved December 31 this past year from Oakland, California to Portland to open a food cart which was his culinary dream. He does amazing Chinese food that his mom taught him. It's just incredible the stuff he does there and literally right next to Jeff you've got All Jarred Up. They are kind of a fun quirky little cart. They were in business in California working in a windowless little space for three years making desserts in jars they sent all over the country. They said enough of this and moved to Portland and opened a food cart. They still ship their desserts all over the country but they are also available out of their cart. - Shomler has filmed segments for the Food Network's Eat St. which will be airing over the coming year. For more information on his book and website go to portlandfoodcartadventures. com.
