Before our trip to Fred Meyer on a quest for tire chains (that we would not be using but had to carry just in case) to go to Trillium Lake, we headed out for breakfast/lunch. My sister voted between a stop at a brick and morter for crepes or a cart for waffles, and she went with waffles and her first Portland food cart. When we arrived, my choice of Flavourspot was not open for whatever reason – it’s a risk sometimes with food carts, and especially in the winter, and especially as this past weekend was just ending a very cold spell that froze many cart water tanks (though I didn’t see anything on FB or Twitter, oh well).
Backup plan! So we went a few blocks down to F’s recommendation of Gaufre Gourmet. Gaufre does a slightly more traditional waffle menu from their relatively new cart- they top mini waffles with sweet or/and savory, rather then making a dutch taco (where the waffle is the “taco”). You can order whole servings or halves of any of their waffle menu offerings.
Savory offerings. One was a special for the day/week/season?, a “street taco waffle” with seasonal shredded chicken with pico de gallo, salsa verde, sour cream and guacamole on a cornbread jalapeno waffle. I didn’t get to try this one, but other F seemed to like it, and it sure looked good.
The other savory offering we ordered was my half order of an ABC waffle: arugula, bacon, camembert cheese, and fig jam. They sure were generous with the arugula, and although I liked the combination of the acid from the dressed arugula with the savory salt of the bacon and soft lightly sweet of the fig, I wish that the cheese had been more creamy melted on the waffle. You can see sorta under all the arugula and bacon that the camembert got warmed enough to sweat but not get oozy to release its butteryness.
Sweet offerings. The Milk and Honey: goat cheese mousse, pistachios, and balsamic caramel sauce, was lightly sweet, but became overwhelming after getting halfway through it. The goat cheese mousse was delicious though- I would recomend only getting a half waffle on this instead a whole. The same advice can be applied to the the Nutty Pearfessor (ok, cute name) with nutella, pears, caramel sauce and candied pecans, unless you really love nutella.
I thought the combination of both sweet and savory can be best found in the Maple Bacon waffle. I think this is better then Voodoo’s maple bacon bar, without having to wait in line and isn’t as sickly sweet as the doughnut, and the ratio of bacon to sweet is more in line to distribute the salty with the super sweet. Pictured below is a half order. I actually saved this and heated it up later so that the maple frosting melted off a bit (there was a bit too much frosting) but the thick crispy bacon definitely still held up in crispness a few days later!
This kept us pretty full up to dinnertime- and Gaufre’s location on Burnside and 4th makes for easy parking on 4th when you want to quickly stop and grab some deliciousness from a cart and go. Gaufre will take credit cards and also offers warm beverages on their menu varying from coffee to hot chocolate to cider too, they have some picnic benches around the carts… basically everything you need to get your morning (or erhm late morning) started. You will need to use their plastic silverware to eat any of their waffles- they are messy, and even then you may need to lick your sticky fingers so if you can bring a wet napkin for each diner that would be ideal. Their location, no surprise, is also open at late night so you can walk only a block or two from the clubs in the vicinity for a wee hour waffle bite. Why get fast food or wait in line for Saturday brunch at a restaurant when you can have food like this at a food cart?
Everything was a bit too sweet for my taste, so maybe next time I visit (I have a Groupon for them that I had not been carrying since I switched purses to snowshoe), I might ask them to dial back on the sweetness and that could make it work for my palatte, which has always leaned more towards savory than sweet. Parker’s Waffles is still my favorite waffle cart, but they put entire scrambles and meats liked pulled pork in between their waffles, which they just brush with maple butter or sweet cream butter, so it’s not a fair comparison. Waffle Window would be more fair competitorto Gaufre- but I haven’t had them either so can’t judge yet. Since Gaufre is new, it has the advantage right now of no huge line… yet- but given the devoted followers of the other 3 waffle carts I have named, it may be just a matter of time.
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