This is a special ed of Food Truck Reviews.

We started off with Things to Do in Portland. We will continue today with a summary of our food tour.

Farm Boy Drive In

A sleepy eatery in an odd duck corner of Olympia. Here the corn dogs are crispy fresh, the official certificate of The Daughters of American Revolution has made an impression (literally & figuratively) on the wall and where a visible minority is rarely seen. Staff were nice. Corn dog was corny tasty. And, we had that feeling that a climactic horror movie scene was about to unfold.  We made sure not to overstay¹.

Lompoc Tavern

Is right around the corner from Pecularium. Large airy tavern with a terrace, and lots of nooks and crannies to squirrel away into. We had beef burger sliders (delicious) and Southwest Chicken salad (lovely spicy dry rub on grilled chicken that crisped up real good under the hot loving grill. And, this fit in quite nicely with the greens and other healthy crap. With numma nums dressing².)

Lima Peruvian Restaurant

We’ve never had Peruvian food so this was a delight. We ordered Ají de Gallina . This is a Creole⁴ dish consisting of shredded strips of chicken cooked in a creamy sauce. Sauce contains ají⁵ and milk. It is accompanied by potatoes, white rice, hard-boiled egg and olives3. To Mr. Nals and I, this dish sounded very different from anything we’ve tried. It had a rich mouthfeel, but wasn’t overwhelmed with a fatty taste. It was smooth creamy perfection with different bites of chicken, potato or egg inside. Also had some wine to give it complexity. Fair warning: this dish was not made to feast your eyes.

Our next dish Bisteck a la Chorillana is described as “Fried steak smothered with sauteed onions & tomatoes served with rice and fried potatoes.” This dish had more pungeant flavour so it was a great contrast to the chicken dish. Smoky grilled flavour, acidic, delicious.

San Francisco Mexicana Tienda
Facebook and Menu

We didn’t take pictures but in the deli section, we ordered Taquitos and Tostado. Amazing fresh ingredients, crispy, flavourful. It is so worth it to come here just to eat, nevermind their glorious market area where you can buy groceries, snacks, hot sauces and drinks.

Food Pods

…are a convenient gathering of food trucks in parts of downtown Portland. The Mr and I visited 2 of them.

Phat Blue Buddha

We got the Korean Beef & Rice. The meat was tender, flavourful. The whole dish was perfection. The chef-owner is super friendly and apparently spent some time in B.C.

Don Jalapeno Mexican Food

Mmm delicious Tacos. Tender tasty meat, crispy fresh veg and tortilla were magnificent! And reasonably priced so you can try a few different ones without breaking the bank.

These are just a few places that we tried in Portland, Oregon in August.

Have you tried any of these places?

Footnotes
1 A bit of artistic license. But don’t they say art imitates life?
2 In Amur’ca, the portions and salads are very different from Vancouver’s. Ask for dressing on the side unless you like globs of gloop.
3 You may have noticed that Lima’s menu does not list this dish. I remembered the name of the dish and so I went off-roading on The Google. I found a description on Adventure Life.
4 Creoles in Peru? Yessuh!
5 WTF is a Scoville unit?