Get Chicken Nanban Rice at Tokyo Sando's Pop-Up Tomorrow

Chicken Nanban Rice from Tokyo Sando. Photo credit: Tokyo Sando

Self-billed as “The best Japanese sando in Portland,” the Tokyo Sando cart has really made a splash in Portland’s food scene. And now they are hosting a pop-up starting tomorrow, Wednesday, November 3 as Tokyo Rice, offering “Vol. 1”—Chicken Nanban Rice.

The dish involves chicken katsu, nanban sauce, tartar sauce, red cabbage, seaweed and Love. You can add extras like a soft egg, spicy mayo, black garlic and hot love sauce, too. From what I can tell, it all comes neatly packed in a single takeout container.

Tokyo Sandos’ sandwiches are a nod to Tokyo’s well-regarded convenience store sandwiches, and contain everything from strawberries to katsu, a scotch egg to egg salad (“the main item people lose their cool for at Tokyo Sando,” according to the Merc’s Suzette Smith). Husband-and-wife-team of Taiki and Andrea Nakajima opened the cart back in February 2020 (just in time for the pandemic) by PSU, but in March 2021 they moved closer to downtown on 2nd Avenue between SW Harvey Milk and SW Oak.

The gorgeous egg salad sandwich from Tokyo Sando. Photo credit: Tokyo Sando

Their “Season 2” operations will end Sunday, November 28 and that will be it for 2021. When asked about “Season 3” in 2022 they responded with “We’re not sure yet.” Apparently one of the owners has “to go back to Japan for this winter for some reason.”

That all said, I expect they will resume operations in 2022. But we’ll just have to see. Meanwhile, perhaps take the advice of Tokyo Sando: “Eat as many as possible you can eat Tokyo Sando before we’re closed.”

Tokyo Sando/Tokyo Rice
321 SW Harvey Milk Street, Portland
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