Friday, June 26, 2009

The Whole Bowl

The large bowl (without sour cream)

Right now I'm in the middle of a crazy whirlwind "vacation" in Oregon; we came at the end of May for Beth's and Daniel's wedding on the beach (so perfect, by the way!), and since then we've been driving up and down the state to spend time with various friends and family members. Currently I'm at my mother-in-law's home on the coast, helping her get settled back in after spending the winter with us in Austin. All-in-all, we will spend seven weeks traveling away from home!

Remember Beth's post on the Portland food carts a while ago? While I was in Portland last week, my friend Dawn met me downtown for lunch, and we headed over to the food carts near Pioneer Square. Dawn works downtown and raves about one cart in particular; in fact, she loves it so much she's never gotten around to trying any of the others lined up there on SW Alder and 9th. It wasn't hard to convince me that I must give it a try, but thank goodness there was also a hot dog stand among the cart offerings; while it all looked tempting to me, everything else was way to exotic for my kids.

image from
The mid-day lunch rush at the Whole Bowl on SW Alder and SW 9th.

The Whole Bowl offers a simple but deliciously satisfying combination of brown rice and red and black beans with various toppings. The secret ingredient, and the reason people will wait outside in line for ten minutes and pay $5 for a bowl of such simple fare, is the mysterious Tali sauce. Apparently, the recipe is a a closely guarded secret. No one except the owner Tali Ovadia knows what's in it. A bright yellow hue, the secret sauce has been described as lemony-garlicky... something. It's vegan, and gluten free. But it's top secret.

I'll be heading up to Portland one more time before we hit the road back to Austin; perhaps I'll get a chance to try out another cart, like maybe Garden State, which I hear is located in my old neighborhood of Sellwood.

And Beth, yes, I promise that when we get back to Austin, I'll whip up some migas to share here!

2 comments:

Beth Marie said...

Wow, that sounds really good, and not too hard to recreate at home... minus that secret sauce of course!

Anonymous said...

What are migas??

 

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