Boke Bowl, 2nd time (they were at Decarli this month). For this visit, I had everything- pork and chicken broth ramen with slow smoked pulled pork (you can see it to the right of the bowl) which is the usual meat for the ramen dish, but then additionally topped with pork belly, and then a slow poached egg and then finally buttermilk fried chicken.

Just as before, insanely delicious, it does taste as incredible as it looks.

To make sure you don’t fall asleep at your desk after that ramen bowl, give yourself a bit of sugar high with a Boke Bowl twinkie – this one is vanilla with miso butterscotch.

I had originally thought I would be visiting the Spring Beer and Wine Festival and the Eat Mobile Festival one after the other today (Saturday), but as I thought more about it, I wanted to enjoy some of the cheese offerings at the Spring Beer and Wine Fest and bring back some bottles from Gouger Cellars, as I always like Gary’s taste as he mixes his wine like a wonderful scientist. His 903 blend was well rounded burst of boldness, and even more unique and amazing was his Mine Mine Mine which he added chocolate to. These went perfectly with the Brownies from Heaven chocolate treasures (which are monster size! Yet once you take a bite, they are the right size… how tricky) by his wife Bonnie… The combination of his wines and her chocolates are truly a perfect pair.

I got some great samples of cheese from Abbie and Oliver’s, where I had the difficult choice of picking my cheese plate of 6 choices from a wonderful offering at their booth. On the way to a table I also discovered Brazi Bites. I have always adored pao de queijo, but have not been able to find manioc starch which is the true base (I am forced to substitute tapioca flour). Now it looks like I’ll be able to buy them as guilty puffs of chewy snacks at retail locations.

I also discovered the amazing cheese of Mt Townsend Creamery, in the photo you can see their samples of Trufflestack (infused with black truffle) and a Off Kilter (washed with Pike Brewing Company’s Kilt Lifter Scotch Ale). I’ll definitely keep my eye out for more offerings from them when I browse for cheese.

I need to prepare now though for one of my top 3 favorite events in Portland of the year, the Food Cart extravaganza that is Eat Mobile. Starting at 4:30 (I bought the pretasting tickets)  and for four hours, you can enjoy sampling from 40 various food carts. Proceeds from the event goes to Mercy Corps Northwest. So Excited.