It’s not too often I’m stopped cold by a salad, let alone one from a food cart.
Yet that’s just what happened last month when I dropped by a tidy new cart pod in Northwest Portland. The salad in question, with chopped cucumbers, watermelon, avocado, nuts, seeds, herbs, parched wheat and edible flowers tossed in an arresting vinaigrette, came from Farmer and the Beast, the self-described “pandemic pivot” from chefs Jeff Larson and Schuyler Wallace.
Larson and Wallace met in 2018 at David Machado’s former Pearl District hotel restaurant Tanner Creek Tavern, a restaurant that served surprisingly creative and competent food for its Hampton Inn & Suites-adjacent location. Those adjectives could also apply to Farmer and the Beast, where Larson and Wallace rely on local farms to present an “aggressively fresh” menu that wouldn’t be out of place at a good hotel restaurant.
That starts with fresh produce delivered twice weekly by Sauvie Island Growers and Our Table farms. For one bowl, heirloom tomatoes share space with grilled corn, fresh sheep’s cheese and basil. Another highlights hummus and grilled summer vegetables, cherry tomatoes, spiced yogurt and salsa verde. And the vin on the cucumber-watermelon salad that impressed me on my first visit? Mostly lime juice.
“Salads for me always have to have texture and crunch,” Larson says. “They can’t just be a pile of lettuce.”
The heirloom tomato bowl from Farmer and the Beast, where produce is delivered twice a week from local farms.Michael Russell | The Oregonian
Beyond the salads, the cart sears a thicker cut of albacore medium rare for a fish sandwich with spicy mayo and soy-dressed coleslaw on a golden brioche bun. It’s very good, as is the double-decker smash burger, with two higher-fat patties from Nicky USA crisped up and arranged under melted American cheese with iceberg lettuce, thinly shaved onion and a Thousand Island-ish secret sauce. Imagine a classic In-N-Out double-double, only with higher quality ingredients (and no three-hour wait).
Before opening in July, Larson and Wallace wrote out a menu that was twice the size of the final draft, highlighted by a juicy lucy-style burger stuffed with funky cheese and bone marrow. That proved to be a bit too ambitious for the first month in a new cart, where space -- particularly refrigeration space -- is at a premium (the so-called Juicy Beast could still appear as a special). But the duo still think they made the right call in opening a food cart. At least before this week’s smoke and wildfires were added to 2020′s list of trials, carts fared relatively well, with most continuing to operate during Oregon Gov. Kate Brown’s March ban on in-house dining.
“If anything happened that closed dining rooms, eliminated counter service or caused restaurants to be shut back down, the cart would still be a walk-up window,” Wallace said. “People can still get what they want and go.”
11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday-Friday; noon to 8 p.m. Saturday; 1845 N.W. 23rd Place; 971-319-0656; farmer-and-the-beast.square.site. This story is part of our annual guide to Portland’s best new food carts. Know of a cart that opened in the past year that you think we should know about? Drop me a line at mrussell@oregonian.com and let me know why you love it.
-- Michael Russell, mrussell@oregonian.com, @tdmrussell
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September 11, 2020 at 05:26AM
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