Mississippi Ave Food Tour, PDX

I booked another food tour on Sunday. This time I booked a month ahead because last time I waited until the last minute and was too late. This tour was all booked as well. So my advice to you is to book ahead. These food tours are very popular in a food city like Portland. I really like Forktown Food Tours. Last year we did their Downtown Portland Dining Tour which is why we went to Southpark Seafood Restaurant this visit.

Our tour included 5 stops. We met at Mee Sen Thai Eatery.  Mee Sen has authentic southern inspired Thai food. It is an informal restaurant with incredible food. There was an upstairs room to accommodate our group or other large parties of people. We had the Yum Woon Sen salad with glass noodles and a glass of Pino Gris wine. The noodle salad had glass noodles, prawns, ground pork, chili, scallions, onions, peanuts and cilantro in spicy lime juice dressing. We skipped the pork.

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Next we went to a Portland Food Cart, Koi Fusion. Yes, it was a fusion restaurant. It is a Korean-Mexican food cart that specializes in fresh vegetables and locally sourced tortillas. Our taco was filled with wonderful looking vegetables. Our taco came with pico de gallo, cabbage slaw, bean sprouts, cucumber, cilantro in a soft corn tortilla. We topped it off with a side of kimchi. The kimchi was delightful, not too hot, but crunchy and sour. This soft taco was a delicious combination of flavors.

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We walked over to Ecliptic Brewing to have half a vegan classic black bean- frisen-walnut pattty with tofu mayo, lettuce, onion, pickle, on a potato bun. The black bean burger came with some fries. We thought the ketchup was house made, too. We also had a Capella Porter in a small taster glass. The owner, John Harris, is also very interested in astronomy so all the beers are named after astronomical terms or happenings.

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We stopped at The Meadow a boutique salt, chocolate, and bitters shop. Here we had a tasting of 3 different salts and two chocolates. I am not a salt fan. I am super sensitive to salt but I am a big chocolate fan. I really enjoyed the Ranger dark Chocolate from Peru in a region that is close to Ecuador. It was all that a dark chocolate should be, a little bittersweet.

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Our last stop was Ruby Jewel, a gem of an ice cream shop. Sorry, I couldn’t resist. But this place is a real gem. We were treated to a part of a lemon, honey and lavender sandwich cookie and my favorite, the chocolate and salted caramel sandwich cookie. It was a delicious finish to an incredible food tour. Arielle, our fantastic guide, was knowledgeable, approachable, and knew a lot about food and restaurants.

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As I stated in the last post, most food tours would like to know your dietary restrictions so they can plan ahead with their restaurants to make accommodations for you.

I thought it was very interesting that we were some of the few Americans on the tour. There were several Canadians, and Australians on the tour.

Fooktown Foods sent a friendly email reminder the day before the tour date. This email included the time and location as well as various forms of transportation to arrive at our destination. Also a download was included with restaurant suggestions, things to do, and places to stay.  We were even given what bus number we should take to get to Mee Sen Thai Eatery. We were also handed a paper summary of where we were going with helpful details. One reason I really like Forktown Foods is Heidi Burnett’s, the owner, attention to all the details. That is very important to me especially on vacation. Arielle, our food tour guide, was enthusiastic about her adopted city. She was originally from Albuquerque and went to college in Santa Fe.

We did go back to Ecliptic Brewing for a tasting. (my next post). We also went back to Mee Sen Thai Eatery to take out the Yum Woon Sen, that delicious noodle salad dish we had earlier. We did this so we wouldn’t have to go out for dinner.