Cartopia

All that hiking at Mount Tabor and horsing around on the monkey bars and see saws made us hungry.

No, we did not go to Burgerville (this is the Hawthorne location) although we did go here three years ago.

Back in 2009, I vaguely remember seeing the Potato Champion cart. It was the only one (or maybe one of two or three) that was there. It stood out to me because it had trees, mountains, and a squirrel painted on it.

I thought this flyer was funny, the "Geek Olympathon"! That should be interesting. Seeing all of these wooden telephone poles plastered with flyers reminded me of a sketch in "Portlandia" where unseen people are angrily stapling over each other's flyers.

That episode was called "Flyer Wars"...

Here's that Portlandia sketch here:

Back to the post at hand.

Located on 12th and SE Hawthorne, just diagonally from Burgerville is one of PDX's first food pods outside of downtown, Cartopia complete with its own signage.

The Whiffie's Pies cart...

Their menu:

One of the other food cart here, Perierra Creperie, which was featured in a small segment in one of Portlandia's episodes (from Season 1). TC was excited when she recognized it. It's what makes watching the show fun, seeing bits and pieces of the city scattered throughout the shows' episodes.

The guy working the Potato Champion cart was super nice. He even pronounced my name correctly (a seemingly difficult task for some) and asked about its' origin (a combination of my parents' names). He seemed genuinely interested. Either that, or he was a good bullshitter. Turns out his name is Mike McKinnon  is a drummer in a local band, Reporter..

The offerings at Potato Champion. If you want more than one dipping sauce, you have to order the larger size, which kind of sucks. Why can't they just sell the sauces on the side if you want a small? But anyways...(See the menu online)

I ordered a medium order of the Belgian fries while Bert was waiting to get our handpie from Whiffie's.

The PB Chocolate pie and hot apple cider for TC. It was, you guessed it, cold and dreary for SoCal folk. Luckily, there was a covered seating area in this pod with many picnic tables at which to sit.

The oozing innards of the hand pie. Crust was all right but it was too crumbly. I didn't really like the hot filling. Bert enjoyed it, but I found this way too sweet after one or two bites. I like my hand pies to be cold not warm. I'm wierd like that.

This was quite a nice photo of the Tick, taken by TC. Sadly, he would be lost forever the next day in the Goonies' Jail. More on that later.

Our Belgian frites (medium) with two sauces - Honey Mustard Bourbon and Tarragon Anchovy mayo (recommended by KDB). Personally, I thought the bourbon was too strong. It was actually kind of gross for me. The anchovy spiked mayo with tarragon was a little better but hey, it was worth a try. They also had regular ketchup (free) so I used that more than the other sauces.

If only that honey mustard sauce didn't have that bourbon...

Who else went to Cartlandia?

Wandering Chopsticks went here three years ago. Read about her visits to both Whiffie's Pies and Potato Champion...

Read more about the food cart phenomenon:
Evolution of a Pod (Portland Food Carts book)
PDX Pod Invasion (Portland Mercury)

Also included are local PDX bloggers' posts on Cartopia
SpaBettie
Nomadic Foodie and
Oregon Live

Cartopia is located at:
12th and SE Hawthorne
in the SE Quadrant of PDX

This concludes Day 2 of our epic Portland trip.

If you have just stumbled upon my blog, you may wish to read Day 2 in this order:
Ha & VL
A Movie and signs from the SE
An Xuyen Bakery
Mt. Tabor Park
Cartlandia
ending with this post.

Tomorrow would bring us to the coast where we would make a pop culture pilgrimage and enjoy the sights and flavors of coastal Oregon.