I was up in Portland this weekend for a class so I decided to take advantage of some of the great food that city has to offer. I was near the Mississippi Marketplace food cart pod so I decided to stop by one of my favorite carts - Native Bowl.First let me tell you a little bit about Mississippi Marketplace. The setup is fantastic - there are ten different carts located there and plenty of (covered!) seating. They are also located right next to a beer pub called Prost! which has heated outdoor seating and will let you sit there and eat your food cart food as long as you purchase a drink - a fantastic arrangement if you ask me, and one I would have taken advantage of if I wasn't in a hurry to get home this weekend! Another plus for people like me who don't live in Portland and have to travel there is that parking has never been an issue there - there has always been a ton of available street parking right around the corner.
But now let me tell you about Native Bowl. I love the bowl concept - grains, proteins, veggies, and sauces all mixed together? It's hard to go wrong. Native Bowl offers five different bowls named after different streets in town: Broadway, Alberta, Hollywood, Couch and Mississippi, with various sauces and veggies and either tofu or soy curls.
I usually get the Mississippi Bowl because I'm a sucker for BBQ sauce and soy curls, but this time I decided to branch out a little bit and try something different so I went with the Broadway Bowl. It's a combination of jasmine rice, garlic tofu, ginger peanut sauce, red cabbage and carrots topped with scallions and sesame seeds. I think it was nearly perfect except several of the cabbage shreds were on the large side and kind of awkward to eat. Other than that I have no complaints - the sauce was delicious, the tofu didn't have any sort of gross squishy texture and the cabbage and scallions give it a nice freshness.
I lied a little when I said I branched out, because I also ordered a Mississippi Bowl to take home with me (hey - it's far and I don't get to go often, I need to make the most of it!). The food is of course best when it is freshly made, but I think it kept well until lunch the next day. I love this bowl - it has homemade (vegan) ranch sauce plus two kind of BBQ sauce and soy curls topped with coleslaw and more scallions. Just like the Broadway Bowl, the cabbage in the coleslaw and the scallions give it a nice crunch and freshness which goes well with the creaminess of the ranch and the tangy taste of the BBQ sauce.I'm kind of in love with the food cart trend and Native Bowl is definitely one of my favorites.
