R.I.P. the Alder Street pod

It is an occasion for mourning in downtown Portland as the Alder Street food cart pod has closed. It was the pod, the first one to appear organically, imitated around the city and the country. At its height, with around 60 carts covering a full city block plus some, it was the biggest concentration of street food in the United States and a tourist attraction in its own right.

The "plus some" closed late last year to make room for a hotel. A little over a month ago, the remaining carts in the main block got word that they needed to be out of there by the end of June. The city, with the help of various community and business organizations, is scrambling to find a way to get them up and running again on public property for at least the rest of the tourist season. A longer-term plan has been in the works for a while to create a "culinary corridor" of carts in city-owned parking spaces.

It's great to see the carts being recognized as a vital part of the city, especially since in Portland they're mostly immigrant-owned. It's not clear how many are going to be saved, though.

In remembrance of the greatest pod ever, here are some of my tasty recollections of it:

• Zereshk polow, Raha: The national dish of Iran! It didn't catch on in these parts, apparently, as Raha closed last year.
• Mahi-mahi fish and chips, The Frying Scotsman: Not a traditional Scottish fish, but it works. (The cart also offers the more typical cod and haddock.) Reputedly making the best fish and chips in town, the Scotsman managed to jump to BG's Food Cartel in Beaverton a few months ago.
• Sweet and sour chicken, Hua Li House: One of the few places I've found that makes this dish to my exacting standard. (My exacting standard is: must contain plant matter, pineapple and green peppers at minimum.)
• Gabby with bacon, The Grilled Cheese Grill: Possibly the most delicious grilled cheese sandwich the human race has ever constructed. This cart is the only other confirmed survivor I know of, landing at another downtown pod.
• Spam musubi, Island Grill: I've never met a spam musubi I didn't like, but these were consistently excellent.
• Steamed pork dumplings, Shanghai's Best: I've also tried the pan-fried ones, and they're okay, but somehow the same recipe is absolutely perfect when steamed.
• Cheeseburger dumplings, The Dump Truck: Not even half as disgusting as that sounds.
• Lamb shawarma, multiple carts: Hummus and falafel never interested me, but thanks to the numerous Middle Eastern food carts (so many the pod was dubbed "Shawarma Square") I've discovered that this is a cuisine that I like overall.
• Eggy pocket with duck, Eggy Pocket: A type of bing (Chinese sandwich crepe) where egg is added and cooked inside it. I'm pretty sure that "eggy pocket" is not the actual Chinese term for it, but I've yet to uncover its proper name.

So many things I never got to try. I hope the last-minute plan works.

Weekly diary, June 30, 2019

Summer weather is back, I've survived the biggest crunch time of the year at work, things are looking up. I wonder what I'm forgetting.

Cat

This is Monty (originally Shiitake, for those who read about him on Facebook). Now just over a year old, he's another ex-feral, but you'd never know it from the way he's developed into an absolute love bug.

Fandom

The weekly anime commentary happened. FIFTY-EIGHT EPISODES.

The summer anime preview got written, and should be up soon. I'll have 14 premieres to watch if they all get licensed.

Spikecon finally posted its schedule. I don't have to moderate anything. Disappointed to not see any moderators reaching out before the con. I always send out a quick "here's some questions to think about, and is there anything you want to make sure to get a chance to say?" message to panelists beforehand when I'm moderating.

Books and media

Still have a second reading project to blog about. Now that work crunch is over, might actually get myself to do that.

Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse made it to Netflix, so we watched it last night. WOW. Absolutely would not mind if that won the Hugo.

It's a good thing I only had two anime shows left to watch this week, because I have many closing thoughts about Attack on Titan. And about the incredibly misleading buzz that was circulating about this part of the story, and anime fandom and its ability to grapple with sf generally. Okay, some of those thoughts should not be put into print.

Gaming

Sezan did not do so well this week, so next time I promised to bring my Time Traveller deck.

I thought I'd try practicing with it ahead of time, so I tried out The Crucible, which allows online casual play. Unfortunately it turns out not to have the cards from the expansion implemented.

But there was a GitHub repository mentioned on its help page, meaning it's an open-source project that people can just show up and help with. No, turns out there's no code there, it's just used for issue tracking. A little later, I learned that development has stopped because Fantasy Flight Games is working on its own official online play offering. No one knows when it's going to be released, though.

Maybe I can find someone up for a casual game at Spikecon.

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