Image credit: Gourmet Fury (who didn’t seem to like Portland as much as I did.)

I thought San Francisco was the food truck / cart city to rule ‘em all and that the rest o’ yall were just bitin.

I was so, so wrong.

Not only does Portland have no sales tax and allows drinking off-premises, it also (presumably) has extremely food-cart-positive laws. Because those things are everywhere. (Hence an entire website dedicated to it. Look at the map. LOOK AT IT.)

Total win for Portlanders. Utter relief for my San Francisco-based love handles.

The carts seem to be mostly stationary, which helps take the guess work out of where a particular one is (although that doesn’t stop them from having Twitter feeds, of course). We only managed to explore two of the numerous “cartopias” in Portland, but the highlight was poutine from Potato Champion on SE Hawthorne. Gooey gravy with melting cheddar cheese curds over excellently seasoned fries. We thought we would need other condiments on the side. As it turns out, we never needed them.

(And yes, there is a vegan version.)

I can count the number of times I’ve had poutine on one hand. It’s just not that common (if anywhere to be found) in San Francisco, let alone any other city I’ve lived in. And the aforementioned love handles are happy about that.