Debbie K.
Yelp
I 've heard and seen the pictures of this food cart for several years now. I was visiting Portland last week and had to try it.
The food cart is now painted aqua blue instead of black. I like it. Portland is already dark and cloudy all the time. The aqua blue color brightened the food carts environment, IMHO.
My favorite turned out to be the Couch Bowl. It is pronounced 'kooch' and not 'couch' (the furniture you sit on) like I thought it should be. I guess it is named after a famous sea captain John H. Couch, a pioneer at Columbia river in Oregon. I like it because it is spicy, a bit sweet, and a bit tangy. The sauce is made of gochujang, a Korean red pepper paste, combined with other secret ingredients. The vegetables tasted fresh and the sesame tofu was savory good. This bowl definitely doesn't taste like something that Captain Couch would eat though. Unless Captain Couch also went to Korea, learned the cuisine, and took the red pepper paste home with him to Columbia river. Hence, kooch was so delicious!
I ordered a small Couch Bowl and a small Mississippi Bowl. It's not that I am a pig but this may be once in a lifetime experience being I live thousands miles away from Portland and who knows we all will be vanished in 2012 as the Mayans predicted. :-)
Mississippi Bowl was also delicious! The bbq soy curls were nice. If you like bbq and ranch dressing, this bowl is for you.
Now, what I think COOL was the cylindrical Chinese-take-out bowls they serve it with. That was a fun bowl to eat from! You definitely have to use chopsticks(provided at the food cart) instead of a plastic fork. Otherwise, it won't be fun at all. My method was to plunge the sticks to the bottom of the take-out bowl and then pulled out the rice, tofu, and sauce while trying not to spill the veggies on top (you won't be able to do this well with a plastic fork). Then, I ate what I dug out to make some more room while I stirred and stirred until the veggies, rice, sauce, sesame seeds, and tofu were all mixed together. I would not recommend eating the bowl like licking ice cream cone from top to the bottom. The wonderful morsels are in the bottom and middle of the bowl so work at it until all combined together, you will be rewarded with yummy morsels.
I bought several coconut macaroons to-go since I had no room for dessert. It was yummy also.
It's really too bad that I live far away from Native Bowl. This is the kind of eating establishment that I will visit every week.