Four Things I Learned This Week (August 27)

Brokedown Palace burger pop-up at Bar Norman on Saturday. You can look forward to burgers and market vegetables from Brokedown Palace tomorrow, Saturday August 28, at Bar Norman. “They’ll be popping up at the bar with delicious food and fun vibes (think street DJ, skate videos, and lots of chilled red wines)…the perfect way to say byyyyyyeeee to August.” The fun goes from 6pm to 9pm or until sold out. You can still hang out after that, though.

Hit the Spot to Open a Restaurant in Vancouver. Hit the Spot, the popular burger cart that sits in the Human Bean coffee shop parking lot on Sandy Blvd, will open a future restaurant at 2420 Main Street in Vancouver, Wa. “We’ve worked so hard to get to this point. Can’t tell you how great it feels to start with a pop up tent and a bbq in 2014 at the farmers market on the weekends, to going full time late 2018 in a food cart, to finally achieving a restaurant space in 2021.” From what I can tell, this means the cart will close eventually. CORRECTION: They are not closing the cart! The Columbian also reports on their dreams of further expansion. “The goal is to open hit the spot! restaurants in other parts of Vancouver, as well as suburbs such as Gresham and Beaverton.”

Asian vegetables grown in Gresham. Loved this PoMo article on Catherine Nguyen, who started Mora Mora Farm, where she grows bok choy, mizuna,  yu choy, and kabu turnips, among other things. She has an annual CSA (currently there’s wait list) and she provides the veg for Cully’s Matta food cart. Personally, I love farms that grow produce common to diverse cultures, but I’m also the person that was drawn to the mysterious-to-me veg in the unmarked box at Berkeley’s Monterey Market years ago.

Join Wellspent Market’s olive oil CSA. Have you heard of this? It’s really a variant on the CSA model, but beneficial nontheless. Here’s how they describe the olive oil CSA as their way of helping to support their small farm partners:  “It works like this: Early in the year you buy a CSA share for $100. We use the cash to pay the farmers, and when the season’s olive oil arrives here, that share is worth $120. It’s good for anything we sell at Wellspent Market, not just olive oil. Money well spent indeed!”

Coffee Ice Cubes at Zell’s Cafe

I stopped in at Zell’s Cafe this week and to my surprise and delight, the cold brew coffee was chilled with coffee ice cubes!

The only other place I ever encountered that used coffee ice cubes in their iced coffee was at the long-gone Wholesome Blends on NE Sandy near 46th Ave.  To me, it makes a lot of sense to use coffee ice cubes in iced coffee, in order to avoid the dilution that inevitably happens. At the same time I realize it probably adds to the bottom line. But it’s super cool when it happens.

This glass of cold brew was very tasty and refreshing. It goes for $4 and you get free refills. Plus Zell’s delicious breakfast and lunch food—those little scones they give you when you sit down are also a treat.

Thanks for doing something special, Zell’s!

Zell’s Cafe
1300 SE Morrison Street, Portland
zellscafe.com | Facebook

Head to the Bee’s Cakes Cafe Pop-Up in September

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Beautiful lemon loaves. Photo credit: Bee’s Cakes

As you may know, Bee’s Cakes is now occupying the space at the northwest corner of NE Fremont and 72nd Avenue. It’s currently operating as a wholesale bakery but there are cafe/retail plans in the works (interior renovations continue). However, Rebecca Powazek  (the upbeat force behind Bee’s Cakes) announced that she’s doing a retail bakery pop-up event on Saturday, September 4! So exciting!

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