The culture of Portland food carts — cheaper than restaurants and meriting just a couple-dollars tip (and sales-tax free, to boot) — allows diners to assemble their own multicourse tasting menu, provided they don't mind a moderate walk or a quick bike ride. Like crepes without the milk and eggs, these Norwegian potato-flatbread wraps serve as a versatile bed for sweet and savory entrees that co-owner Megan Walhood's great-grandmother put on the Christmas table every year. [...] walk (or hop on a rental bike) to a rising star of the culinary scene, Carte Blanche, where "Supreme Dictator for Life" Jessie Aron is willing admit to Thai influences from her days in the kitchen at the bicoastal sensation Pok Pok, but says her chief culinary driver is avoiding repetition. [...] they try the food. Layered in a way that makes each bite genuinely different from the last are a fruit salad with diced pineapples, snap peas and corn in a sesame-miso crema, and a small heap of prawns. Because across the river is a slightly different take on international cuisine, borne of two former Peace Corps volunteers who met in the Republic of Georgia and decided to bring what they ate there back with them. Start with the $8 pick-three combination, from which you can sample dumplings, a garlic-walnut puree wrapped in eggplant and khachapuri, a gooey blend of feta and a local sour pickled curd called sulguni inside a thin crust that doubles as perhaps the best grilled cheese in town. Whether you take it all in one go or parcel it out over a couple days, Portland's international cuisine remains on the fringes while the sun shines brightly on the stuff of more traditional childhood comforts: carts starring grilled peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches, homemade marshmallows and gourmet BLTs.
Reported by SeattlePI.com 2 hours ago.
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