Cartlandia (Food cart pre-crawl)

Saturday was a day of grand plans, a little bit of compromise. But everything turned out well. Redneck Widow and myself were to be picked up by PainterLady and BellaBabe for a day of picking over the bones of a dying clothing store chain. Sad for the chain, good for us. I did the math and over 5 trips to the stores (spread out over a 3 week period) I acquired some $1,500 retail value of clothes for roughly $175. Completely revamped my wardrobe and without breaking the bank. Very, very, happy girl here. But you're not here to read about my shopping finesse.

We met up at about lunch time and after a fortifying stop at Dutch Brothers for caffeine (all hail the Dutch) we were on our way. Our goals were the Clackamas location, Eastport Plaza location, and then MAYBE the Cascade Station location if there was time before returning the Gresham Wunderland for a cheap seats showing of Snow White and the Huntsman and then dinner at the Olive Garden for their endless pasta bowl…Mmmm Pasta.

That was our goal. That was not what happened. The Clackamas location was LOOOOONG gone. The storefront empty, most of the signage removed. So on our way to the Eastport Plaza location we swung into Cartlandia, despite Redneck Widow’s misgivings. One thing Cartlandia has up on other food cart pods I’ve been to is the available parking, very nice.

BellaBabe and I led the charge, up and around the carts, investigating menus, what sounds best, what sounded good… Samples? Sure!

After walking the entire loop and inspecting every menu we settled on splitting a margherita pizza eith white sauce from Krust Artisanal Pizza and a couple of pasties (one Traditional and one Cheese and Onion) from the London Pasty Company while PainterLady and RedneckWidow had hotdogs and fries from Relish Gourmet Hotdogs.

BellaBabe and I ordered the pizza first and then headed across the way to the Pasty cart. The owner of the London Pasty Company was very helpful and understanding about our questions involving the ingredients (allergy issues) and very cheerful with a mesmerizing accent. Which is always fun. Also very emphatic about liking them on Facebook, which in this modern social media age I suppose I understand.

PainterLady and RedneckWidow found a shady table near Relish where they could listen for their orders to be completed. Both were telling us about the sweet couple who owned the cart saving up for a wedding and how very nice they were. Our pizza was delivered to the table and we took the requisite (now apparently gone) photos before digging in.

The pizza had a cracker style crust that seemed to have been pre-cooked and warm sauce ladled on (a bit heavy for our tastes) and then the sliced mozzerella was allowed to "melt" in the residual warmth from the sauce. The tomatoes were cold. BellaBabe and I thought back to Pyro Pizza's crispy crust, hunks of artisinal mozzerella and heat toasted basil... This was not what we wanted. On to the pasties!

Sad, so sad. The "Traditional" was as dry and flavorless as saw dust and left us begging for water. We were hoping for a moist filling with thickened gravy, no such luck. It didn't even appear that gravy had ever been involved in the equation. The Onion and Cheese was.. Well is was overly cheesy mashed potatoes stuffed into a pastry shell. It was a baked pierogie. It was... bland.

So while I know it doesn't excuse the tardiness of this post, remembering this experience was sad.

The highlight of the trip was PainterLady's garlic cheese fries, so good. But I'll let RedneckWidow share her portion of the journey.

Until next time, be tasty!

Lunch can be a Poetic Thing

Even if its from *gasp* a chain establishment. Today's lunch hour included a hike SE to the Koin 6 building for an exchange of awesome crafted thing for dirty green paper (what is that all about anyway?) The building happened to hold a Quiznos with signs advertising their Lobster and Seafood Salad sandwiches. Or salads, but lets get real here... Lobster salad vs Lobster ROLL. Who wins?

And it was a thing of beauty and poetry. Especially dipped in their creamy "punch to the sinuses" horseradish sauce. That quick bite cut through the sweet briny flavor of the LARGE lobster chunks just beautifully. It was so good I can't regret anything about it.

So not all chains are bad. Some are, this is by no means a resounding reccomendation for everything from a chain, but this experience was beautiful.

Lunch with the Boss (Culinary Quest 08.12.11)

Lunch with the Boss

I've been debating whether or not I wanted to blog this; I have no pics, and wasn't really impressed. But I consulted the Facebook peoples and the one person who responded (Thank you Mama Unit) said it must be so. And here we go.

My department at work typically which typically runs on 6 people has been running on 3-4 for the last two months now. As one of those 3-4 (for one memorable week 2) people I've been putting in a good bit of overtime. Since my job qualifies as sedentary to light level occupation I'm not so much physically tired as my brain turns to pudding. Funny what 10 hour days will do to your mind, isn't it? Two weeks ago the boss decided to take the three of us to lunch, we just had to pick where.

Personally I usually bring leftovers from home or eat in the cafeteria... On rare occasions when I have cash I'll hike over to the No Fish! Go Fish! cart or down to the food cart pod, but those occasions are very rare indeed. So I bowed out of the lunch location selection. Amusingly enough one of my co-workers had just that morning been complaining that she "always had to pick the restaurant" when she went out with her family. So with malicious glee we all cried "Not it!" in unison and left her with the choice... Muahahahahaha!

Okay, enough with the glee. The day arrived and a location was announced. Jake's Grill. Never heard of it before, but supposedly they have "Great Seafood!" So I googled it. Found the location (10 blocks from work, awesome.) and perused the menu. Some nice looking stuff, some expensive stuff, but still... Not too bad, and I wasn't buying. And away we went.

Very elegant and quite fancy I must say. The waitress was knowledgeable and quick. The menu looked nice. The place was neither empty or crowded and the accoustics were such that we didn't have to yell to hear each other. We went around the table and the orders went like this:
"I'll have the chicken fettuccini" No seafood, but okay.
"I'll have the french dip." What?
"Ooh, that sounds good, I'll have that too." What!? What about the "Great Seafood!" they talked about earlier?

I decided to have some fish, the Tuesday blueplate special in fact. "Herb Horseradish Crusted Atlantic Salmon with summer vegetable medley and roasted red peper risotto cake." Sounds good right? Mmmm horseradish crusted...

I got a salad with my lunch and requested the house made roquefort dressing on the side. Very, very tasty with a nice horseradish kick of its own. When my entree came I was excited, it looked so pretty, bright vegetables, lovely crust on the salmon, pretty sauce decoration... The rissotto cake threw me off a bit, but I've never been a fan of cubes of rice. Reminds me of Chinese takeout fried rice that's been in the box too long.

I picked up my fork, flaked into the salmon, tried a bite... And almost cried. The crust was soggy and flavorless. The fish was nice, but it was just salmon. I couldn't taste any herbs let alone any horseradish... I longed for at least a lemon wedge to brighten things up a bit. It went downhill from there. The summer vegetable medley consisted of a quartered orange carrot, a sliced on the bias yellow carrot, half of an asparagus stalk, and maybe three bell pepper slices all either cooked to mush or still crunchy raw. The rissotto was overdone and oddly sweet from the pepper. All together the best part of my meal was the salad that came before hand. The fish was nicely cooked at least, just... Flavorless.

All together kind of a let down. Which makes me sad.