by Beth Royston

The fact that the city is filled with numerous food carts is one of my favorite things about Portland. Predictably, since starting at PSU, they’ve become slightly dangerous for my paycheck. The wealth of options for lunch and quick snacks around campus is really tempting. I find myself most often visiting the food cart pod on Fourth Avenue, hunting gyros or beef kebabs over saffron rice. It’s really amazing to be able to sample so many different cultures and try things that I ordinarily wouldn’t. Persian food was always in my rotation when I was younger but I hadn’t really found a good spot again when I moved away from my hometown. Luckily, there’s many Persian food carts around Portland — and they’re all mouthwatering. I was worried about having the same quality of Mexican food coming from California, but you guessed it, there’s multiple incredibly delicious food carts for that. Satisfying my desire to eat sushi as often and as on the go as possible? There’s a sushi burrito food cart for that! 

I still haven’t tried everything in the pod and around campus but it’s definitely on my to-do list by the end of the year. After an hour-long process to finally decide which cart to sample, the only decision left to make is where to enjoy my bounty. I am a proud and careful lunch-spot hunter. I like being somewhere semi-quiet and with a spectacular view. I haven’t been disappointed at all by PSU’s campus, and the downtown buildings have conjured a new option — a rooftop lunch. The best view I’ve found has to be on the fifth floor of the Academic Student Recreation Center. It’s nothing short of breathtaking to be able to see the changing fall colors and almost all of campus. I highly recommend checking it out if you haven’t before! It may be getting pretty cold, but I’m excited to see the changing colors of all the trees as the year goes by.