Downtown Portland Eateries- Famous Food Cart Pods (Portland, OR)

With Oregon's lack of sales tax and many great places to eat on a budget in Portland, eating out was one of my favorite things to do while I was there. It was the most painful thing to part with when I had to leave! ;)

One of my favorite places to eat was at Portland’s food cart pods. I read that the city has over 600 food carts at any given time, and the local food-cart scene is legendary.

Unlike mobile food trucks that we know in the rest of America, most food carts in Portland are organized into groups, called “Pods,” that usually stay in the same location for long periods of time. This make it easy to sample several different types of food at one time. These small pods and individual carts are dispersed throughout Portland’s downtown area.
 

Even though I knew about it before I arrived, I had no idea what price range and what types of food I could get. Once I experienced it the first time, I was immediately hooked and I loved it! It was amazing the wide variety of foods that you can get from these food carts- Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, Chinese, Thai, hamburgers, Mexican, Korean, even Ramon noodle soup, donuts… you name it. Some areas have just a few carts, while some areas have the entire block occupied with foods carts! Even the airport created its own food cart pod in the main terminal. “Oregon Marketplace,” located outside the security area, allows hungry travelers to start sampling Portland’s famous street food before they even leave the terminal.

Although there was no shortage of great places to eat on a budget in Portland, I realized that there were only two main options to eat in the downtown area- either food carts or high-end restaurants. So I found that these food carts scattered all over the downtown district were usually the best places to go for food for a budget-minded person like me. The food carts pretty much took care of most of my meals while I stayed in Portland, even breakfast.

The first time, my husband and I decided to start out with a $5 gyro sandwich for something between meals since it was in the afternoon. Because of the price, we expected something very small. When it came out, we were both totally surprised by the size and got really excited like kids wanting to try out more. Since Middle Eastern food is my favorite type of food, and I can only get it expensively near where I live, my diet in Portland mostly concentrated on Middle Eastern food (usually kabobs with rice). The cost was $6.99, and they were large enough that I had some leftovers.

I tried carts randomly in the beginning, but later on I started to notice there were some places known for the best food, and they had long lines. I also noticed some had lots of publicity and were more famous than the others were. It was too bad that I was only able to stay long enough to find out a few of the best food carts to try. You can search the Internet for Portland’s best food carts to see which ones to try before you go. Now I know, so next time I will definitely look for those.

Coming from the area where there are no street food vendors, Portland’s food cart pods scene was an amazing and exciting experience for me. CNN declared Portland home to the world’s best street food, and the local street food scene has received accolades from Bon Appétit magazine.