A little before 6 pm on a Friday night, Clyde Common is packed with people enjoying happy hour. It's connected to the Ace Hotel, one of the modern boutique hotels in Portland (parodied on Portlandia as the Deuce Hotel. BTW - a show worth checking out on Hulu). The dinner menu starts at 6 and I nabbed a seat against the windows, ordered a glass of the Crowley Pinot Noir from the Willamette Valley and waited. By the time I was ready for my second glass, a spot had opened up at the bar. I was flying solo as my husband had come down with something and wasn't in the mood to go out. I have no problem eating by myself, but knew it might be a challenge on a Friday night at a place with a hoppin' happy hour.
Portland has an amazing food cart culture offering a broad mix of international cuisines, including Cuban, Ethiopian and Czech, as well as American favorites -- cheese steaks, sausages and fries. And while taco trucks might be a dime a dozen in other parts of the country, they may not be the first thing you think of when someone mentions Portland.
We've walked by the food carts in downtown Portland a few times, always on a weekend, because we just don't seem to plan trips on weekdays when most of them are open. This time we got smart, planned a trip arriving on Friday and got there in time for lunch. I've been bookmarking food carts to try for ages -- Kim Jong Grillin, Solar Waffle Works, Chili Pie Palace, but for this quick trip, we were centered downtown, which focused our options.
I love Tasty n Sons. So much. Because of Tasty n Sons, I've only had breakfast/brunch at one other place in Portland, because if we only have one morning open on a trip down, we are definitely going to Tasty n Sons. It's a prime example of the food excellence coming out of Portland these days -- fresh, seasonal, delicious. It's an American place in the best sense of the word -- along with a breakfast biscuit with egg, cheddar cheese and fried chicken or sausage, and delicious little chocolate donut holes, the menu also features a Burmese red pork stew (kind of like char siu) served eggs two ways over rice.
Empires have been built on packaged seasoning mixes. There are packets for everything from chili to spaghetti sauce to tacos to meatloaf. I grew up on those packets! Steadily over time, I've learned to make those dishes from scratch, but there's been a hold out, one last packet standing in my pantry -- Lawry's Hot Taco.
Building a better burrito, even a gringo one, starts with the meat and its seasoning. I tried but just could not come up with the right combination of spices to duplicate or surpass the Hot Taco packet (and eliminate all the ingredients I couldn't pronounce). More salt? Was it the chili powder? Is it cocoa that's missing? What about garlic powder? Oregano? I looked it up on copycat recipe sites, I tried the taco mix from Marketspice, a great spice and tea shop in Seattle. No joy. So we just kept on with the packet for our everyday tacos and burritos. Until...
