Dive: Guy Fieri, center, stands with Marie Sablan and Edward Calvo Sablan, former Guam residents and owners of food truck PDX671 in Oregon. Their Chamorro cuisine will be featured on Food Network. Courtesy of PDX671

Guam’s local cuisine will be put on the map thanks to a visit from a platinum-blonde TV celebrity.

The tiny food cart PDX671 shares Chamorro comfort food with its Portland, Ore., community and last week, it got a visit from the Food Network’s Guy Fieri.

Fieri is the host of the feverishly popular “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” which highlights hometown eateries across the country.

Former Guam residents Edward Calvo Sablan and his wife, Marie Sablan, own PDX671, which sits in a cart pod in their neighborhood Rose City Food Park.

The Sablans punch out local favorites such as chicken kelaguen, shrimp patties and fiesta plates.

They say the episode won’t air for another two to three months , but they’ll give Guamanians a heads-up once they’re notified of when it will be on Food Network.

http://www.guampdn.com/article/20130509/LIFESTYLE/305090321/Guy-Fieri-showcase-Chamorro-food-truck

Food cart owner Nong is expanding her business downtown and in Southeast Portland.
// Photo by Adam Wickham

Narumol Poonsukwattana (Nong), 33, runs one of Portland’s most famous food carts: Nong’s Khao Man Gai. Her cart has won the hearts of food critics and the business-lunch crowd alike, despite serving only one dish — poached organic chicken and rice wrapped in butcher paper, a popular Thai street food with Chinese roots. Nong moved to Portland from Bangkok in 2003, working at  Thai restaurants around town before deciding to start her own business. She opened her first cart downtown in 2009; three years later, she opened a second center-city location, plus a takeout kitchen in Southeast Portland. Nong’s special sauce, known for its cult-like following, is available at New Seasons Market, the Woodsman Market, Uwajimaya and other grocery stores. Where does a food cart maven get her own lunch fix? “Eurotrash and the Frying Scotsman are two of my favorites,” she says.

FEELING THE LOVE

“What keeps me going every day is just customers appreciating what I do. It gives me encouragement. It’s not even about the money. I see that what I put in gets rewarded. Recently, Timbers fans voted on food carts to serve at the games. We got a really good response and we won. It was very busy, amazing energy. Work can be very fun.”

EVEN KEEL

“I do rock climbing. I used to rock climb a lot when I only had one food cart. When I expanded I didn’t have time. Later, I realized it wasn’t good for me when I worked too much. I couldn’t think straight. This year my team works on their own more often, and my role as owner has changed. It’s important for me to be there for my team mentally, so I try to balance my life better. I’ve gone back to climbing more often now.”

NEWLYWED

“I’m satisfied with what I have in life right now. About a year ago I married Scott; he came into my life at an unexpected time. I was almost giving up on having a personal life. Dating is hard, and I was so focused on my work. But he’s a good guy. I’m so happy I found a partner who gives me good support. I have a dog … life is good [laughing].”

DOWNTIME

“My husband surfs. He has a little cabin with his friend. When I went along I had nothing to do, so I went to a driving range near the Tillamook Cheese Factory. I was never interested in golf before. When I hit the ball, it just felt good, so now I’ve started golfing. I also love gardening. I grow my own Thai herbs, like basil and lemongrass, that I use in my Asian cooking.”

NEXT

“In the future, I’d like to see my product in every grocery store, even outside of Oregon. I want to have more products out, like hot sauce and a gluten-free sauce. One day I want to be a good, big business. But I started from just one food cart. I see the first little location where I invested a lot of time and energy, and now see how [the business] is growing.”

http://www.oregonbusiness.com/articles/129-may-2013/9939-food-cart-owner-nong-balances-life-work-and-play

The Italian Market

Yo, cheesesteaks are for tourists! Those are the first words I remember hearing from the owners of The Italian Market almost a year ago. Hailing from the city of brotherly love, the owners Erin and Andrew bring south Philly street food to Portland.

I first met Erin and Andrew over a year ago and learned of their plans to relocate to Portland and jump into our ever evolving street food scene. Coming from Philadelphia, a food city in its own right, they wanted to bring those flavors without the schtick we all associate with the cheesesteak. I’ve been to Philly and yeah, you can find a cheesesteak on every corner, but there is so much more to eat and The Italian Market will show you. It has been a long year for the two from the move and building a food cart and securing a location. But now, in April, they are open and slingin’ sandwiches at Belmont Station, a venerable bottle shop known by many who took out their old kitchen in order to welcome a mobile vendor. A new welcoming patio was also constructed so you can enjoy your sandwich inside out of the rain with a beer.

http://www.oregonlive.com/news-network/index.ssf/2013/04/the_italian_market_brings_sout.html

It’s official: Cambodian street food spot Sok Sab Bai is off the street, having settled into the SE 21st brick-and-mortar digs that most recently housed Bara Sushi. Chef Nyno Thol, who owned both concepts, announced the switch last month, shuttering his six-year-old Japanese spot to fully concentrate on Sok Sab Bai’s restaurant potential.

In its new location, the brick-and-mortar version of Sok Sab Bai features some menu favorites from the food cart — pork belly buns, caramelized chicken wings, grilled chicken plates, and hearty bowls of soup and rice porridge — in addition to new items like a fried striped bass (that serves two), a chicken and banana blossom salad, and prahok ktis (a ground pork and eggplant dip).

Hours of operation: 11a.m. to 9p.m., Monday through Saturday; 10a.m. to 8p.m., Sunday.

http://pdx.eater.com/archives/2013/04/05/sok-sab-bais-cambodian-brickandmortar-now-open.php

Mary Sheridan lost $1,800 to a thief over Thanksgiving and customers donated over $3,200 back.
Credits: Mary Sheridan

 Nov. 26 ABC News reported of a Portland, Oregon food truck, The Honey Pot, that was broken into over the holiday and had not only all of the money removed from the truck but a single chef’s knife and apple pie. Mary Sheridan, the owner says that after thanksgiving her business slows way down because the only thing her food truck sells is pie. She was so irate with the thief, she posted an angry letter to the side of her truck and even put it on her website, Facebook business page, and Twitter.

Mary is a single mother that runs the food truck alone. She says that she doesn’t usually leave money in her truck so finding her locks broken was way over the limit for her because she was depending on that money to help her through the winter months since business wouldn’t pick up for her until the spring time. When she contacted the police about the break in, they told her that they didn’t have any leads to go off of since everything was so clean and neat and they wouldn’t likely be pursuing the case.

When customers saw her letter, donations began flooding in through extra large tips, donations to her website and even more traffic to her N.E. Portland food cart that is usual for a non-holiday. Originally, Mary Sheridan had lost $1,800. By Monday, customers and others that donated had brought her in $3,200. Mary contributes this largely to the spirit of the holiday.

http://www.examiner.com/article/donations-exceed-amount-stolen-from-a-portland-food-truck

An Oregon food-truck owner and her family nearly had their holiday ruined after a thief a stole all the business’ Thanksgiving profits.

And that’s a big deal for a business that specializes in pies.

“I worked really hard the week leading up to Thanksgiving,” Mary Sheridan, who owns and operates The Honey Pot food truck in Portland, said. “I made as many pies as possible and we did really well.”

Sales plummet for most food trucks at the end of November after the Thanksgiving rush, Sheridan said.

“Things don’t often pick back up until the spring,” she added.  “I was relying on that money to help get me through the winter.”

But when Sheridan returned to the truck Saturday, after taking Black Friday off to rest from a grueling week, she found all the money in the truck, totaling $1,800, had been stolen. A single apple pie was also taken, along with a 10-inch chef’s knife.

“I guess they needed something to cut their pie with,” she joked.

But having worked so hard for what was to be the final weekend of her busy season, Sheridan didn’t feel like joking when she found the padlock on her truck had been removed and the money stolen.

She normally never leaves money in the truck overnight and police told her they had no leads to follow and probably wouldn’t be pursuing the case.

Sheridan decided to vent her frustration by posting a strongly worded letter on her truck shaming the thief. The single mother wanted whoever stole her money to know that they’d stolen not just from her but also from Sheridan’s two young children and from a small business that struggles this time of year.

Friends and family urged Sheridan to post the memorable letter to her business’ Facebook. She also posted it to Twitter. Customers and the community suddenly responded with donations, extra large tips, and by buying lots of pies. At a friend’s suggestion, Sheridan placed a donation button on her website. Money flooded in through that, too.

“The letter,” Sheridan said, “was just my way of getting revenge. I never expected to receive donations. And Sunday, which was dreary and cold, was my busiest non-holiday sales day ever.”

As of Monday morning, Sheridan had received $3,200 in contributions, double the amount that was stolen and plans to give the additional money to a charity. To pay it forward, as she describes it.

“There are a lot of generous people out there,” Sheridan said.  “I want whoever stole from me to know that there are better ways to help yourself than by stealing from others.”

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/11/oregon-community-serves-up-generosity-to-robbed-food-truck-owner/

Skillet Diner (pictured above)
Seattle
1400 E. Union St.
skilletstreetfood.com
The Vibe: Chef Josh Henderson’s new restaurant in Capitol Hill is more than just a roomier version of his vintage Airstream trailer that serves high-end comfort food—there are floor-to-ceiling windows, industrial fixtures, and a 2 a.m. closing time.
What to Order: Pork belly and waffle; grass-fed burger smeared with bacon jam and crumbled blue cheese.

Marination Station
Seattle
1412 Harvard Ave.
marinationmobile.com
The Vibe: You’d think Spam-based dishes would be a hard sell even on the street, but Kamala Saxton and Roz Edison’s mobile Korean-meets-Hawaiian fare converted so many canned-meat cynics that they needed to open a brick-and-mortar spot. Keeping things consistent, they modeled the intimate new space in the Capitol Hill neighborhood after their truck (nicknamed Big Blue), with the same navy color pattern—but they now serve beer.
What to Order: Aloha slider with tangy slaw and teriyaki-slicked grilled Spam; kimchi quesadillas; miso-ginger-chicken tacos.

Lardo
Portland
1212 SE Hawthorne Blvd.
lardopdx.com
The Vibe: In two years, the must-visit mobile outpost serving pork-centric sliders has grown into a full-fledged sandwich shop–cum–hangout. The Southeast Portland eatery also has a buzzing beer garden in its parking lot where you can sip 13 craft brews on tap.
What to Order: Pork-meatball bánh mì dressed with sriracha mayo; herb-coated fries with pork scraps and peppers.

Big Gay Ice Cream
New York City
125 E. 7th St.
biggayicecream.com
The Vibe: If you mix artisanal ice cream with exotic flavors (like wasabi-pea dust, curry, and cayenne pepper), they will come. That was the lesson learned by Douglas Quint and Bryan Petroff, whose popular truck is now an East Village storefront.
What to Order: Vanilla ice cream with dulce de leche, sea salt, and chocolate dip; vanilla ice cream and toasted curried coconut.

Franklin Barbeque
Austin
900 E. 11th St.
franklinbarbecue.com
The Vibe: Barbecue prodigy Aaron Franklin first customized a trailer to smoke his glorious meats, but after less than two years he upgraded to a homey, cement-floored joint. The waits have tripled to three hours, but at least now there’s air-conditioning.
What to Order: Marbled brisket; smoked seasoned pork spare ribs; plump, snappy sausages; potato salad; pinto beans.

5411 Empanadas
Chicago
2850 N. Clark St.
5411empanadas.com
The Vibe: Strong word-of-mouth following has allowed this Argentine gem specializing in empanadas to upgrade itself from a mobile operation to a proper café where diners can enjoy delectable pastry pockets and expertly brewed Intelligentsia coffee.
What to Order: Empanada of bacon, date, and goat cheese; empanada of braised beef and sautéed carrots and onions.

El Naranjo
Austin
85 Rainey St.
elnaranjo-restaurant.com
The Vibe: Culinary Institute of America instructor Iliana de la Vega and her husband, Ernesto Torrealba, were still operating a lime-green mobile eatery in 2010 when Texas Monthly declared it one of the state’s best Mexican restaurants. To feed the swelling crowds, the couple expanded into an old cottage on the southeastern edge of downtown that has the added bonus of serving a killer margarita made with a choice of 35 tequilas.
What to Order: Shrimp in green pumpkin-seed mole; pan-fried poblano peppers filled with slow-cooked pork, tomatillos, and olives.

Komodo
Los Angeles
8809 W. Pico Blvd.
komodofood.com
The Vibe: Komodo was one of the first on the L.A.-fusion food-truck scene, turning out Asian riffs on Mexican comfort food. And now it has a sleek West L.A. space with an open kitchen and a bigger menu—but the prices are still street-friendly.
What to Order: Seared ahi fillet with ponzu sauce; deep-fried-Alaskan-cod burrito with a grape-and-almond salad.

image via Kickstarter

It’s a Portland love story. A city in love with food (and renewable energy) discovers a food cart serving fine, locally sourced veggie burgers, powered by solar. That food cart, known as Off the Griddle, expands its offerings to include a little cafe, called the A.N.D. Now the foodie-preneurs behind the venture are counting on a little love on the part of their supporters to fund a Kickstarter project designed to bring the two businesses together in a single restaurant.

The food-cart-to-restaurant narrative is a common one in a city where municipal zoning laws allow for ambitious food concepts to get off the ground with a minimum in funding — so long as a food cart remains capable of moving, would-be restaurateurs can set up shop just in just about any commercial area where they’ve gained permission from the property owner. This allows entrepreneurs to test a food concept and build a following before taking the plunge on a full-blown restaurant.

The entrepreneurs’ goal is to consolidate their current operations — the solar-paneled food cart located at the 50th Ave. and Division St. food cart “pod,” and the five-table cafe, located at 5420 E. Burnside St. – into one all-encompassing restaurant. Ashley and Dan (the “A. ‘n. D.” behind the cafe’s name) plan to use Kickstarter funds to outfit their new, expanded location with a host of sustainable features, including solar panels, reclaimed furniture, recycled plastic chairs, energy efficient equipment, low wattage fixtures and lighting, recycled/reclaimed countertops, low-flow plumbing, greywater recycling, gardens to supply the restaurant with veggies, and rainwater harvesting. The two aim to ensure that all new building materials used in the course of this project are made with post-consumer content and/or are otherwise sustainably sourced, and plan to pursue LEED certification for the building.

Off the Griddle and the A.N.D. Cafe are seeking $24,188 in crowd-sourced funding for this project by their Kickstarter deadline of September 27. So far, the entrepreneurs behind the project have raised around $5,000 toward that goal. For more information — and to donate — check out their Kickstarter page.

http://sustainablecitiescollective.com/namarchetti/62506/portland-griddle-goes-hizzle

Cities across the United States are becoming hotbeds for mobile-food entrepreneurs benefiting from an online social networking culture. The mobile food-vending phenomenon is a rich environment for examining the development of technical, social and economic dimensions of contemporary urban life through the mobilization of services and social activity in both virtual and physical space. Although the number of mobile food vendors in cities has nearly doubled over the past decade, few studies have addressed this trend’s impact on the current and future urban fabric.

Portland, New York City, Austin, Los Angeles and San Francisco are among the most well-known cities for mobile food vending. Food trucks appear at a variety of public and privately owned locations, including plazas, community parks, tourist areas, alleyways, office parks and college campuses. They range from innovative units equipped with restaurant-quality equipment, often referred to as “gourmet” food trucks, to less-fancy and often marginalized trucks known as “roach coaches.”

With the rapid increase in gourmet food trucks, smartphone applications such as TruxMap, Food Truck Fiesta, Road Stoves GPS and Truck Spotting have emerged, offering real-time tracking of favorite eats. Yet Twitter is the most popular source of information among vendors and customers alike. It is used to exchange tips about serving locations, daily menu items, service outages, customer feedback and changing city ordinances. Social media has become essential to vendors by assuring a sufficient customer-base wherever they choose to locate. At the same time, urban spaces acquire new functionality and meaning with the presence of food trucks, as customers instantly populate urban sites for temporary periods of time.

Off the Grid, a weekly street-food event in San Francisco.

Unlike Portland or Los Angeles, which have longstanding food-truck industries, the nascent scene in the San Francisco Bay Area is spreading rapidly through an abundance of media coverage. This coverage is often focused on the effects of mobile vending on local municipalities, including issues of nighttime theft and crime, regulating distances from secondary schools, resolving spatial conflicts between vendors and restaurant owners, assigning proper public parking areas, updating outdated ordinances and permit costs, and maintaining health-code requirements. Despite these challenges, street-food events like Off the Grid, Bites Off Broadway, Food Truck Mafia and the new SOMA Street Food Park are becoming weekly fixtures and drawing unprecedented crowds.

This fast-growing industry shows how information technology is linked interdependently with social events and practices in urban environments. The ubiquitous use of online media presents challenges for urban design and planning. Largely built upon principles and strategies of modernization since the emergence of the industrial city, they must now incorporate flexible social, political and economic strategies that accommodate and respond to new modes of communication. In “Telecommunications and the City,”Steve Graham and Simon Marvin point out that “a primary challenge for planners and local governments is that they inevitably have to deal with bounded and enclosed jurisdictional definitions of urban space, which leads to difficulties in taking account of real-time flow of capital, information, services, and labor power that continuously and invisibly puncture these boundaries.”

The role of online communication in redefining how we receive, generate and share information is widely discussed, yet the ways in which it reconfigures the urban environment remain unclear. How can we understand the relational meaning, use and relevance of contemporary urban places when everyday activities are becoming more mobile? How might urban analysts, planners, designers and inhabitants respond to the influence of information technology on these increasingly dynamic environments?

Ginette Wessel is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests include ethnographic investigations of information technology and everyday urban environments, as well as methods of urban visualization and cognition. Ginette’s article “From Place to NonPlace: A Case Study of Social Media and Contemporary Food Trucks“ is published in the Journal of Urban Design.

http://www.thepolisblog.org/2012/08/mp.html

No GPS tracking device on Dan Harding’s Southeast Division Street Off The Griddle food cart. Then again, this is Portland, not Chicago, where food carts and trucks are always under a watchful eye. by: CHRISTOPHER ONSTOTT/TRIBUNE FILE PHOTO

GPS trackers on PDX food carts? Thats not likely…

Portland carnivores might be salivating at the prospect of dozens of food trucks purveying Vienna hot dogs caravanning their way here from Chicago when they hear this news.

Mark it down in the “they just don’t get food carts” category. Chicago’s City Council has adopted a resolution that says food trucks (their version of food carts) cannot take up residence within 200 feet of any brick-and-mortar restaurant or even a Starbucks or convenience store.

Just to make sure none of those food trucks is cheating, all the truck operators are required to purchase GPS systems that will be monitored so city officials can see the location of each truck at all times. Food carts that settle too close to a restaurant will be fined up to $2,000 per incident.

Chicago’s food cart operators are swallowing hard at the new city rules. Beth Kregor, director of the Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago Law School, says city aldermen enacted the rule knowing there are practically no spaces in the downtown area that are not within 200 feet of a restaurant. Aldermen were not shy about explaining why they opted for the restrictions, according to Kregor.

“These laws are really in place because the restaurants want them to be in place,” she says.

Food truck owners told the council that the ordinances would destroy their businesses, though some of the new rules actually encourage food trucks. Previously, city ordinances forbid food preparation on a food truck or cart, so all that could be sold were meals such as sandwiches that had been cooked elsewhere and wrapped for sale. New rules allow on-site cooking.

Kregor sees the tussle in terms of established businesses versus new ones. Kregor figures the food cart risk taker of today is the restaurant owner of tomorrow.

“It’s really disturbing that this kind of entrepreneurship has been suppressed,” she says.

Dan Harding, co-owner of the popular Off The Griddle food cart on Southeast Division Street, which grew into the A.N.D café on East Burnside Street and soon might become a full restaurant, says there’s no way such rules could happen in Portland.

“The food cart represents a foot in the door for a lot of young or aspiring chefs or restaurant owners,” Harding says. “There is a level of symbiosis in Portland.”

Harding says there are as many taverns as restaurants near his food cart on Division Street, and some have signs on their doors telling customers they are welcome to bring in their food cart food while they drink.

“The majority of bars are more than happy to have food carts in the neighborhood,” says Harding, adding that the Chicago rules could lead to a zombie-like civic chaos if enacted here.

“I wouldn’t want to say you’d have riots in Portland, but you would certainly have a lot of lost foodies roaming parking lots wondering where the carts have gone,” Harding says.

http://portlandtribune.com/pt-rss/9-news/114293-chicago-gives-food-trucks-a-big-shove

]]> http://www.mobilefoodnews.com/2012/08/portland-or-chicago-gives-food-trucks-a-big-shove/feed/ 0