Recent Stories with tag street food

Today may be the last day of summer, but fall is a fine season for taking culinary-related trips outside of Seattle. Having previously reported on an "Escape from Seattle" to Whistler, it's now time to head south to Portland and then loop up through parts of central Washington to discover good eats (and drinks), as I did this past summer.

Let's start with Portland. You're probably thinking: Oh, not another article about how Portland's food is better than Seattle's. Maybe not better, but different. And when traveling, aren’t we usually looking for something different? I'll offer a few examples, but by no means an exhaustive list.

Portland's got a different food vibe than Seattle. As local food writer Lorna Yee recently remarked about Portland in a SunBreak interview, "the food is a little gutsier, and the scene a little grittier."

The dining spaces are certainly different. It seems Portland chefs and restaurateurs are more creative with their kitchens and dining rooms, as you can eat at carts, strip clubs, and converted industrial spaces. There's the usual glitz and glamor of downtown eateries, but in general, I find the better eats to be on the east side of the Willamette River. (Even if you take the train to Portland—a fun way to travel—you can easily head east by bus and foot. I've done it, and you get to discover more of the city this way.)... (more)

It would be embarrassing for a bookstore to misspell its name, wouldn't it? At least it's correct once.

Let's begin with a graphical representation of what's wrong with the world today, the "LOLcats on teh internet" history. Don't get me wrong, I liked the LOLcats early stuff, but of the graphical histories much needed by the world, this looks like cognitive surplus going to waste. Take that, Clay Shirky.

Wait, wait! The Great Recession is hurting city employees' retirement, too? No one wants to see their piece of the pie go lower--even street food vendors are getting pushback from local restaurants. Seattle's commercial real estate market stopped the bleeding this spring, Eric Pryne says. Seattle Bubble wonders if Mel Gibson is behind Washington's bottom-five finish in home value appreciation. In other money news, Jon Talton looks at the potential impact of deflation.

Publicola had strange news about emergency contraception availability. Goldy at HorsesAss went to a public hearing about options to the Chihuly glass museum, and then stuck up for the fun of the Fun Forest at Seattle Center.

Seattle City Light said we might see power outages due to the heat--the usual culprit is water in underground vaults--and then a Pine St. substation exploded, as CD News reported. On the bright side, if you went outside for a walk at 14th and Fir, you could have seen this deer.... (more)

When Seattle Magazine decided to throw a street food extravaganza, it sounded like a great idea: tons of mobile food carts, collected together in one place, providing mini-bites.  What could possibly go wrong?

But the first Mobile Chowdown, held last October, turned out to be a clusterfuck of epic proportions: poorly organized, misused space, crazy-long lines, and carts running out of food.  It was a post-apocalyptic hellscape *thisclose* to being The Road.  Everyone I know who went took one look at the mess and left.  Those who stayed suffered. (Seattle, the only city in the world where folks will patiently wait in line for hours, and then complain.)

Tomorrow (11 a.m.-3 p.m.) marks the second attempt, and word is that this time around, organizers have taken steps to ensure it runs a little more smoothly.  The site's the same--the parking lot at 1616 W. Vertona--but now the carts will be spaced farther apart to keep the space organized.  There will also be more staff on hand to help direct people, more clearly designated vendor line areas, and plenty o' port-a-potties.  Because yes, even that was a problem last time around. ... (more)

I just got a tip that the Marination Mobile (which I just posted about yesterday) is rolling their Hawaiian and Korean cuisine over to the new Belltown Key Bank branch on First Avenue at Wall today from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Anyone that visits the Key Bank branch--ask about the interest rates on 6-month CDs--will get a coupon worth $10 of Marination munchies. I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict there will be a line.

A street foodie commented on my post about creating a street food corral downtown, so I gave Parks & Rec a call to see what they thought about my genius idea. I believe I got waved off the street-food take-over of Occidental Square, but in general they were supportive of "legalizing it." (It turns out the hugely successful "Mobile Chowdown" in Interbay wasn't permitted quite as strenuously as it could have been.)

The person to talk with about creating a street food corral may be Virginia Swanson, of the city's Special Events Committee (scroll down for contact information). The Parks & Rec... (more)

Mayoral candidates Mallahan and McGinn spent the week sparring with neither side landing a punch. At the end of the week, an argument over the search for a new police chief degenerated into each accusing the other of "politicizing" the mayoral race. If you're keeping score, these tit-for-tat exchanges are costing Mallahan more.

The Seattle school district released its new maps, which tilt towards the old neighborhood set-up in place before segregation was solved by putting kids on buses for two hours. Now more than ever, it matters where you live in Seattle. On the other hand, I-1033 threatens to pack kids in like sardines for years to come. 40 students to one teacher isn't uncommon these days, with chairs running short. Overcrowded classrooms and parents who don't believe in vaccines should help keep the swine flu in check!

The homeless campers of Nickelsville got a 30-day invitation from Wallingford's Keystone Congregational... (more)

Skillet's poutine, courtesy of The SunBreak Flickr Pool member 7502winona

Seattle magazine, as a side order of their October issue street food coverage, have cooked up a cool idea, a Mobile Chowdown featuring some of Seattle's favorite food trucks: Marination Mobile, Skillet, Maximus Minimus, Kaosamai Thai, Gert's BBQ, El Camion, Parfait Ice Cream, and Dante's Inferno Dogs.

It's this Saturday, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., at 1616 W. Bertona in Interbay. There's also an ongoing Twitter contest for followers of @mobilechowdown. They're asking one question each day from October 1 until October 10, (total of 10 questions) all having to do with the food trucks or the prize providers. The prize is dinner for two at Tilth Restaurant, a night at the Sorrento Hotel, and a year's worth of Seattle magazine.

This is all very good. For a start. But the obvious question is why can't I have my street food in one convenient location all the time? (Convenient, by the way, rules out Interbay.) This kind of forward-thinking is one more area in which Portland has Seattle beat. First of all, Food Carts Portland shames us with its very existence and abundance of wagon-prepared fare.

But secondly, Portland has a street food corral downtown, where a wagon train of street food vendors have set up shop on the perimeter of what I vaguely remember to be a parking lot. This is a stroke of genius. Downtown workers are always in a rush to get a cheap lunch.

We still have the chance to one-up PDX on this, though.

We could line Occidental Square with carts (or run them down the center). That would give people (besides our wishfully labeled "transient" population) a reason to sit down and enjoy the tables and chairs set out there. If we wanted to progressive about it, we could even use the rent the city charged the carts to fund homeless services in the area. Who do we talk to about getting this going?