Post -- Liz Crain

Food Lover's Guide to Portland Blog...

began as a collection of some of the research, recipes, images and culinary adventures that went into the making of Food Lover’s Guide to Portland. The first edition came out in 2010 and I started the blog in February 2009 as a companion piece to it and to help organize my thoughts while researching and writing it. The second edition came out in September 2014 from Hawthorne Books. The blog is now home to all different food, drink and beyond things I want to show and tell.

I didn’t think I’d like blogging when I first started this, but it turns out I really do, mostly because I get to shout out people and things that I love.

On Saturday morning my boyfriend and I woke up early by our weekend standards (thanks be to sunshine) and by 8am we were ready for breakfast. We rolled by Por Que No because we've been wanting to check out their breakfast but it turns out they are on the Portland lazy hazy weekend schedule and open for brunch at 11am. We drove south on Mississippi and decided to check out what Portland's newest food cart pod -- Mississippi Marketplace -- has to offer for breakfast.

There were a few options and we went with The Big Egg saddled in between the newest Garden State outpost and a coffee cart.

We both got the same sandwich to a T -- The Portlander ($5, $6 add protein) with two eggs over easy, blue cheese (other choices: cheddar, fontina) and applewood smoked bacon (other choices: ham, veggie sausage). These savory sammies are made with soft and eggy Grand Central brioche. One slice is slathered with punchy whole grain mustard and minced chives and the other with blue cheese and minced chives...

It was is good as it looks. The soft brioche sopped up the sunny yolks, the blue cheese melted into the bacon, and we stopped talking for a while. Yum. You can check out The Good Egg's full menu here.

It's nice to be at a food cart pod in the early AM if you love food as much as I do. It's similar to getting early to a big show and watching roadies unload and set up. There just aren't as many bus tubs of alcohol involved with food cart set up. At least not in plain sight. There were several carts prepping for the day and we even got to sample Southwestern Pizza Company's breakfast pizza which was delicious.

Just so you know Mississippi Marketplace's lot is landscaped, there are tents to ward off the rain, there's loads of seating, plenty of bike parking, and vendors are asked to use recyclable packaging and compost food waste. Here are some other snapshots from our Mississippi Marketplace morning...