Breaking News!

PDX Pudge just received this scoop… There’s going to be a new all-vegan food cart opening up in Portland!  Called Tandem Treats, it will be all vegan, organic, and local, and it will be pulled around on a tandem bicycle. (I know it sounds like a ready-made Portlandia skit, but it also sounds awesome!!)

They’ll serve hot dogs, nachos, buffalo-ranch pizza, chili, sushi wraps, kombucha, and root beer.  Uh… hell yes?

Rocks and Cicada, the couple behind the deliciousness, are trying to fundraise the capital for their project.  Check out their painfully adorable video, then donate some monie$$: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tandemtreats/tandem-treats-vegan-organic-local-food-cart-coming

If you donate money you’ll receive rewards like hand-written letterpress thank you cards, free food on your birthday, or your name written on the cart.  Those all sound delightful.  Plus, with the money they’ll eventually make from the food cart, they’re hoping to be able to open an animal sanctuary some day!  Picture perfect.  There’s less than 3 weeks left for their kickstarter, so donate a few bucks today!

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Homegrown Smoker

Not fit for mixed company.  Utterly indecent.

Such are the phrases that come to mind when contemplating Homegrown Smoker‘s sloppy BBQ delicacies.

Homegrown Smoker is hands down my favorite food cart in PDX.

Even though they specialize in down-home cooking, HS’s flavors are often surprisingly complex.  It’s not often a restaurant features both remoulade & rutabagas, and deep fried pickles & oreos.

Among the many standouts from their standard menu is the Smoker Salad: Soy curls, baked beans, cabbage and collards, tortilla strips, diced peppers, onions, daiya cheese & ranch, with a slice of molassas cornbread (left, with the Smoked Shroom Burger and Deep Fried Pickle Spears).

They’ve got some extra naughty items for you too, including the Frito Chili Pie, Tye Dye Chili Cheeze Fryz and…

The Portorrito: a burrito with smoked portobello and vegan mac nocheeze!  Yeah, that’s right: mac’n’cheese in a burrito!!

Keep an eye on their blog, which features daily specials.  Our last meal in Portland (and possibly the best we had) was one of their featured sandwiches, the Philthy NoCheezesteak.

Here we have the sandwich, sweet potato fries, and lurking in the front, those innocent-looking lumps of white and black, are none other than OREOS DEEP FRIED IN COCONUT BATTER. How can something so wrong taste so right? But hey, vegans need a little more fat every once in a while (on the off chance you’re not already getting more than your fair share from Voodoo Donuts).

Go eat, be amazed, build up some winter paunch, and be sure to wash your food down with a mint lemonade.

P.S. They’ll deep fry anything on request.