WWeek Archives - Pechluck's Food Adventures

Have you heard of Eat Mobile before? It’s a food cart festival that is located in the parking lots outside of OMSI. More than 30 food carts are in attendance, offering samples of their foods. Several carts offer more than one sample item. It’s a great way to try food carts that are usually all over the city, all gathered together conveniently in one place for you, and offering you samples to help you know what they are each about with the hope you will visit them in the future!

This year, it is being held on April 27, which is a Sunday. You can buy tickets now and they are ~~$50 Pre-Tasting~~ Sold Out! (this gets you early admission and free beverages for that pre-tasting time of 1-2:30pm before continuing to eat until the end at 6pm) or $30 General Admission (eating time from 2:30-6pm). All the food samples are included in the price of admission, but alcoholic beverages are on your own.

I personally always buy the pre-tasting because if you are fast, you can hit most of the carts even before the General Admission crowd enters, and so you won’t be waiting in line as much. I call that well worth the price. According to the FAQ this year they are calling it a “carefully curated roster of Willamette Week’s favorite food carts”, so I’ll report back if anything has changed. In all my previous years though, all the carts were open and giving samples during the pre-tasting.

Attending Eat Mobile is a great way to get to know all the up and coming carts- there have been several times that’s how I got introduced to places that later became brick and mortar, such as Lardo and Fifty Licks and Cheese & Crack, to name a few. According to the list at Willamette Weekly, the carts signed up to participate include

I also promise you, you will get very, very full. I actually want to try a lot of carts so endeavor to only take 2 bites of every sample, and carry a little tote bag with ziploc bags when samples are bigger so I can enjoy them over the next couple days too!

Map of Eat Mobile 2012 layout

Here are a few photos from previous Eat Mobile years to give you a glimpse of the atmosphere and samples of food, and also a link to my previous recaps if you want to learn more about what might be available!

Eat Mobile 2013
Eat Mobile 2012, plus there were two special food tours to visit some of the participating food carts that year, a Friday tour and a Saturday tour that took us to various food cart pods to visit the actual carts themselves and chat with the cart owners in less stressful times!
Eat Mobile 2011
Eat Mobile 2010