I find Portland to be very diverse, not ethnically or “color-wise” per se, but culturally, or sub-culturally should I say; hippies, goths, pierced, inked, sober, high,… all co-existing in this peculiar city. And it is the people that make it peculiar.The city is naturally located in a beautiful corner, with rivers and mountains and greens, but is overshadowed by an overcast of clouds and mists of rain, and cracked streets and filth spotted sidewalks, which give it shabbiness and character. Portland does have character.
I walked over the bridge past the long line that still stood patiently outside of Voodoo Doughnuts (which I have yet to try), into the heart of downtown, passing by rows and rows of food carts, not stopping until I got to one particular one: Dump Truck. It’s a yellow cart that stands higher than it’s neighbors, getting me on my tiptoes to reach for my order, selling nothing but dumplings (Ah, now you get it). In fact, they offer a dessert dumpling- think apple pie- though I did not try it and so have nothing to write about there.
What I ordered was also non-conventional of a high, if not higher magnitude. My lunch was a box of eight bacon cheeseburger dumplings, steamed. I filled a little sauce cup with their “secret sauce”, what they suggest for this particular dumpling of theirs, and a cup with sweet but spicy chili sauce, just because I like it hot.
I took my box, gratifyingly warm, with the sauces, a plastic fork, and a few napkins, and walked a few meters over to the red brick square and set up. I sat on the stairs, poked my fork into a dumpling, thinking I should have ordered the sampler, instead of putting all my eggs in the same basket. I was surprised, pleasantly surprised, in what awaited me inside. My mind had created the anticipation of crumbles of hamburger meat, crispy crunchy bits of bacon, and an ooze of American cheese. It was far from what I had expected, and gladly so. The Dump Truck made it work. It was surprisingly… enjoyable, this bacon cheeseburger dumpling of theirs. The bacon was mildly rendered, soft but thin and delicate, and hallelujah, I detected no slices of American cheese; it was more like a sauce, almost like a light gravy, but cheesy and meaty. And there were onions- I think it was the onions that brought it all together.
The secret sauce though, was strictly unnecessary- even nasty. Although I only know of Hamburger Helper through tv commercials and passing by the boxes in the supermarket aisles, the addition of the sauce made me think I was eating pasta and Hamburger Helper with ketchup on top. And their Secret Sauce did remind me of ketchup, but tangier, and of a lighter color, transforming a creative and surprisingly delicious dumpling into a reminiscence of McDonald’s. I see no reason why their “secret sauce” should remain a secret- I for one would never be interested in stealing the recipe. I did prefer it with the chili sauce, although only a touch. It didn’t need sauce at all if you ask me; I didn’t want to mask the interesting flavors of itself with something from a squeeze bottle, and its innards were moist from what I’m calling the gravy, to survive without being dipped into anything else.
And so, I had my bacon cheeseburger dumplings under the Portland clouds while people watching the homeless with a cardboard sign begging for money for food and weed, French speaking tourists giggling as they heard their voices echo in the center of the square’s corner, and a young man cautiously climbing the stairs next to me, feeling the ground ahead of him with a long branch before his every step. After making the last step, holding his arms high and victorious, he yelled, “You thought I was blind, didn’t you?”.
You must agree, Portland does have character.
the hungry persian 