Forktown Food Tours: Not Just For Tourists

There are still two spots remaining for the Brunch and Bakery Tour I’m co-hosting with Forktown Food Tours on Saturday, April 18th! We have a super great line-up of Glyph, Pearl Bakery, Little T, Quin Candy, Nuvrei and Palace Cakes. It will be a fun day of delicious food and behind-the-scenes information! So go on, sign up now and be our last two awesome guests! You know you want too 😉

Speaking of Forktown, just a few weeks ago, I took my mom on one of their tours that strolls down Mississippi Avenue. Despite the fact that my mom has lived in the Portland-metro neighborhood for almost 40 years, she has probably been to the east side only a handful of times. As a fellow food lover, I knew she would have a great time on a food tour and assumed (correctly) that she hadn’t been to any of the stops on the Mississippi tour. So I figured this would be a perfect mother-daughter activity to celebrate her recent birthday.

We met our lovely tour guide, Marissa and the rest of our group outside of Mee Sen Thai. Due to the 1pm start time, I had to remind my mom a few times before not to eat lunch beforehand. As Forktown states on their website, it is “not a tasting tour but rather a tour that serves a good amount of food and drink.”

 

I loved Mee Sen’s authentic northern Thailand cuisine and the more private dining area upstairs, which is a fun yet cozy space. After some introductions around the table with our other cohorts – a mix of tourists and locals – we toasted with our white wines and house made blackberry sodas and got to eating!

We started with the Sai Ou, spicy sausage stuffed with ground pork, lemongrass, galangal, kaffir leaves, turmeric powder and chili paste and Yum Woon Sen, a glass noodle salad with prawns, pork, chili, peanuts and cilantro, which is really flavorful, bright and refreshing.

After learning about the history of this North Portland neighborhood – that enlightened even us locals on the tour! – we moved down the road to Gabagool, a little Italian food cart in the Beech Pod across from Amnesia Brewing. I admit I had never even heard of Gabagool before, so I was particularly excited for this stop.

This is one of those food carts that makes visitors realize how spoiled we are in Portland, and how really talented chefs can cook up excellent food inside a tiny trailer. Chef Ryan Sherman, who worked at high-end restaurants like Fratelli and Caffe Mingo, makes everything by hand including fresh pasta and flatbreads. His signature dish, the Gabagool is named after the slang for capicola (sliced cured pork, somewhat similar to pancetta). Simple, refined and incredibly delicious, it includes salami, capicola, fresh mozzarella, romaine lettuce, tomatoes and hot peppers all sandwiched inside that handcrafted flaky, warm flatbread. Seriously good. Not only do I need to eat that again real soon, I also need to go back for his pastas. {Click here to watch a great short video by Behind the Food Carts on Gabagool.}

After a brief stroll into the Rebuilding Center, we wandered into Little Big Burger. I had been raving to my mom for years about how addicting their truffle fries are, and finally she got to try them. She is now hooked too. We also each enjoyed one of their cheese burgers topped with chevre. Needless to say, at this point, we were starting to get full.

So it was a good time for us to make a cocktail stop at Sidecar 11. What a wonderful, quintessential Portland bar! “It’s like a different world in this area! Is Portland really like this?” my mom exclaimed. Given that she doesn’t cross the river all that much, she was surprised by all the plaid, quirkiness of the shops and general hipster vibe. The bearded bartenders at Sidecar were incredibly friendly and told us all about their whiskey selection and cocktails they made for us. Our favorite was the Gin Gin made with gin, ginger puree, ginger beer, and mint. Tangy, refreshing and a tad dangerous as I could certainly down a few of those real easily.

We then stumbled down the street to The Meadow to learn about all about various salts and chocolates. Both are reaching new levels of complexity, similar to wine, where region, terrior and production all make noticeable differences.

Of course, we had to finish with something sweet and Ruby Jewel Ice Cream sandwiches were just the thing. Despite being super full by this point in the day, the rich and creamy Salted Caramel ice cream sandwiched between two chocolate chocolate cookies was real good and a perfect way to end the tour.

As someone who had been to 4 out of the 6 stops and has lived in Portland nearly all my life, I knew I would have fun on this tour and eat delicious food, but I wasn’t sure if I would learn much. It was quite the opposite. Not only did I get more info on the inner workings of a few Portland restaurants and more about salt than I could imagine, I also got an excellent refresher on Portland history. Plus, it was a nice way to chat with some friendly, interesting folks and enjoy a day with my mom.

There’s nothing like food bringing people together!