Julie’s Food

Best bánh mì I’ve had ANYWHERE in the world. And I’ve had a lot.

Remarkably delicious banh mi for $ 3. I would have walked right by the place, but I had a craving and the other banh mi places downtown have left me wanting more spice and more flavor. The peanut sauce and jalapenos really made this sandwich sparkle. I’m not a huge eater, so this was just right, but others would probably want either two of these or another item.

I was looking for something light, so bought the vegetable spring rolls, which come in pairs. A few people had ordered ahead of me, so I waited probably ~10 min for my food, which is perfectly fine considering there was only one cook/​food assembler. The rolls tasted clean and fresh, were tightly bound, and came with an ample amount of delicious peanut sauce. One ingredient I missed was basil, but maybe that is only a given in Thai cuisine. The older lady at the front of the food stand did not really speak to me, so it was a little amusing that even though I was making the transaction with her it seemed I was really communicating with the second lady in the back food prep area, who maybe had better English? Whatever works. Since I wasn’t starving when I ordered, I essentially got lunch for $ 3 – not bad!

A pretty good little cart in a very nondescript package.
I keep coming back here. Though it is neither the best ever nor the most original Vietnamese fare i’ve had, it is always tasty, fresh and CHEAP.
My two standard items are the shrimp salad rolls which come with one of my favorite peanut dipping sauces i’ve had from a cart, and the tofu baguette which features fried tofu that is deliciously seasoned, flavorful and every so slightly spicy. I always buy both of these… for 6 dollars it is a STEAL. I usually eat the salad rolls, start on the sandwich but then get full and have half left for my next meal. So basically that’s $ 4.50 for me to get so full that i can’t even finish what i am eating.
Consider me sold!

I was browsing the food cart pod at SW 5^th between Stark and Washington and wouldn’t have known this cart’s name, but thankfully Kody L’s taken a great photo here on Unilocal.Thanks, L!
I thought I’d need to spend $ 6 on lunch. I was wrong. I ended up refrigerating my sandwich at work and ate it the next day. It was a little chewier than I think it would have been the day before, but was certainly still tasty. For $ 3 there was a good serving of BBQ pork (char tsu), carrots, cucumber and what seemed to be a soy sauce vinagrete on it.
The day of the order, I ended up eating the spring rolls. As a previous poster mentioned, they were the order sitting there on the front of the cart. It was a cold day so it seemed to be fine. They held together great at work and had some of the tastiest peanut sauce alongside. However, cilantro haters be warned, these used a little cilantro in them for the «zing» rather than mint. I personally love cilantro, but I know many other people are in the ‘ew, it tastes soapy’ arena.
This is one of many serviceable Portland lunch carts, I recommend it. If you’re on the other end of downtown, don’t miss the banh mi cart near Portland State University at SW 4^th and College. It’s good as well.

Eating for the last few days, I decided to be good to my body by eating something healthy. Let’s see, 2 salad rolls for $ 3… salad rolls it is!
After ordering the rolls, I realized they were the ones wrapped in plastic wrap sitting in front of me on the counter. Great… how long have those been sitting there? Luckily, it must have been made not too long ago because the rice wrapper was still soft and delicate. The filling tasted fresh and crispy. They also gave me fish sauce and hot sauce as well as the peanut sauce, so that gave me some variety in terms of dips. *Note — do not use too much hot sauce, spiiiiicey!

After checking out some of the other carts my husband and I decided to eat at this one. We both got a Vietnamese Sandwich. We weren’t expecting much because of the $ 3 price tag but boy, were we surprised. It was so yummy and very filling. I got the teriyaki chicken and my husband got the steak one. The meat was cooked perfectly and the taste was superb. I loved the carrot and cilantro on the sandwich. Soo good… we will be coming back here again.

We had wanted to try the famous Vietnamese sandwiches and this place looked to have good ones. For $ 3, you get a large sandwich, definitely enough for a good lunch. They have pork as well as vegetarian, so we got one of each. Both were excellent and the vegetables in the pork one tasted completely different than those in the veggie sandwich. There are a lot of Vietnamese carts in Portland but this one was very good.

In the middle of the 5^th/​Oak/​Stark pod, is a nondescript trailer which I wouldn’t have known the name of, save for the sign board on the sidewalk. For me, this place would be an odd choice for my noontime repast, but Mrs. BDB and I had out of town guests, and we were trying desperately to all order from one stand, to facilitate payment.
I went with a Bahn Mi. For those of you not familiar with this, it’s basically the Vietnamese version of a sub/​hoagie/​grinder/​poboy, featuring pickled vegetables, a couple (at least) kinds of pork, on a French baguette. The French influence in the Vietnamese culture, came from their 100 year adventure in Vietnam, (prior to our little adventure). A lot of the French culture, language, cuisine, stayed behind, and is now filtering its way through the US, thanks to the large number of emigres.
The Banh Mi is getting a lot of publicity lately, in particular, due to the success some purveyors from Los Angeles, the Nom Nom truck, are having on the «Great American Food Truck Race» on one of the food networks. Check them out, if you are in L. A, because the servers are certainly as delicious as the sandwiches!
Julie’s banh mi didn’t precisely follow the traditional recipe, she had substituted some vegetables and only had a couple kinds of pork, but the sandwich was fresh, the bread great, and it packed a wallop from some large jalapeño slices (which normally I would eschew).
A bargain on the block at five bucks.

Searching for lunch and I ended up here at this food cart. I was originally going to get one of the Vietnamese sandwiches, but the owner kept saying «#20, very good!» over and over again… I figured… if he’s advertising it that much. it must be his specialty. it was basically stir fried noodles with shrimp. What impressed me with this place was the portions. For ~$ 5, the portions are nice and big and he didn’t skimp on the shrimp!

Basically Chinese food: BBQ Pork, noodles, etc. They also have various sandwiches, of which I tried the Vietnamese Sandwich for $ 3.00. It’s a pretty big sandwich for so cheap — I was surprised! It has three different types of pork, one of which seemed to have some bits of cartilage in it still. It tasted pretty good though.
I was afraid a $ 3 sandwich wouldn’t fill me up, so I got some salad rolls, which have shrimp and BBQ pork in them, served with a spicy peanut sauce. Pretty good too.
Very inexpensive cart.