Kim and Phil

You Must Eat in Portland If it wasn’t for the Portland, OR food cart scene, we wouldn’t be where we are today. Over the years, Nong’s Khao Man Gai has become synonymous with Portland’s food cart scene. While you’re at Nong’s, save some room and stop next door to Victor Darchini’s Caspian Kabob. Fried Egg I’m in Love is a classic representation of a Portland food cart filled with passion and quirk.

We travel to eat, and our recent trip to Japan was certainly no different. We’d seen the sights; this time we were there to just eat, drink coffee, sleep, and eat some more! You may or may not have experienced the recent rise of tsukemen (dipping ramen) in the States, but tsukemen has been rocking in Japan for quite some time. Side note: We visited Fuunji on our last trip, another popular tsukemen with strong bonito flavors.

Before his gig managing Paddy Wagon Sliders, he spent time working in a sheet metal factory. He found an answer meeting Calvin, a man who left the tech world to pursue his dream of opening up a restaurant by way of food truck. Check out the Korean Zombie Tots: crispy, golden-fried tots topped with with BBQ Korean rib eye, kimchi, and finished with Paddy Wagon’s signature chipotle/mayo sauce. Paddy Wagon Sliders has every intention of opening up a brick-and-mortar serving gourmet burgers in the future, but you should definitely head over and grab some sliders and tots before then.

Here’s a behind the scenes look at our favorite eats: These Crab Garlic Fries from Gourmet Faire are hand battered and use fresh Gilroy garlic. One of the festival’s most famous exports is undoubtedly the Garlic Ice Cream from Marianne’s. It’s made by infusing the cream with garlic before turning it into one of a variety of ice cream flavors, like pecan praline. This post was sponsored by Motel 6 who features the Gilroy Garlic Festival as part of their America’s Top 6 Quirkiest Festivals series.