Tuesday, October 20, 2009

PDX: Native Bowl in Mississippi!

The newest vegan cart in town.

Time to dust off the ole Vegan Friendly Food Carts in Portland list! Oh wait, it doesn't collect dust. Julie and Jay Hasson, two of the coolest vegan parents in Oregon, opened their food cart, Native Bowl, earlier this month.

Surely, you know Julie already, or you should, her list of culinary acclaims astounds me - to name some: cookbooks (with a new vegan diner book in the works!), the Everyday Dish cooking videos, teaching cooking classes for The Cancer Project, her own blog, being an awesome person
and now, an all vegan food cart!

The Native Bowl is all about the "mix" of ingredients. Their bowls are topped with house made exceptional sauces and are filled with vegetables, sushi rice and soy curls or tofu, and named after NATIVE areas -i.e. the Alberta bowl, Mississippi bowl, etc. Get it? I do!

They're also serving grilled sandwiches, wraps and baked goods. Because you know, Julie rules.
There was a vegan reuben with Daiya as a special the day I visited.

Be Advised: This is a high quality lunch visit, bring more than $5 with you! A large bowl (which is served in a Chinese style carton) will run you $7.50, though I did have sauced leftovers that were great with my dinner!

Onwards to the photos!

My Alberta Bowl with a spicy Korean Srichacha sauce

The sauce had me wondering if there were tears in my eyes - in a good way! A great way!
They'll happily turn down or up the heat for ya, I'm sure - I'm a wimp these days.

My friend had the hummus wrap - and remarked that "she knows what she's doing". It seemed like the bread as well was homemade.

For dessert - a coconut macaroon. Look, I've had a lot of vegan macaroons, and this was the best one I've ever put into my mouth.

The new tables at the cart lot are...vintage. Check out the helpful notes on them, below.

On the topic of carts, winter is slowly approaching, and there's a bit of chatter about covered seating, indoor escapes, heat lamps, carts closing for the season (Wolf & Bears soon being one) and where to store your cart going blankets. Let's see if cart going thrives through the rain, or we find ourselves inside actual restaurants more often.. The Mississippi Marketplace and Cartopia at 12th & Hawthorne, in particular, seem to be preparing for the colder weather well.

All Photos by Lucas DeShazer.

8 comments:

Alin said...

I wondered that about how Portlanders handles the bad weather with the carts. All these carts haven't popped up since winter, surely! What'd they do last year?

All of Julie's food looks amazing. Cannot wait to try it on my next visit to PDX!

jess (of Get Sconed!) said...

Alin - It's not very cold in the winter in Portland, it usually stays in the 40s-50s, but a lot of carts do close early/for the day come very rainy/icy/snow days.

We have had over a 100 carts open in the past year, no joke!

Leslie Richman said...

Yum- I had an awesome soyrizo burrito from a cart late one night last time I visited Portland. Is that a Queenbee wallet? I love mine :)

Debra said...

You are sooo lucky.. It all looks so good!
Debra @ Vegan Family Style

Embee Breedlove said...

Um... maybe the carts could just all come to New York for the winter? (Would it help if I beg?) ;)

Monique a.k.a. Mo said...

Portland has everything! I love bowls so I am gonna have to make a trip up there.

Melisser; the Urban Housewife said...

I am dying to go! DYING!

kim kardashian said...

Oh, I love this.