 WHY HURRY? Slow and Low co-owners Joel Priest and Amber Hawkes. IMAGE: cameronbrowne.com |
New cart pods, in Portland, spring eternal; Slow and Low’s silver bullet is located in the merely weeks-old lot just behind North Mississippi Avenue’s Albina Press, where a few other trailers have also put down stakes next to a small array of picnic tables. The word here at Slow and Low is sandwiches, and the word has been good. Its Carlton Farms pork confit sandwich ($8) is so tender one wants almost to protect it—if not from the world’s hardships, then certainly from poachers—and is topped with house-pickled onion and a well-balanced horseradish-beet mustard. The vegetarian portabella sandwich ($7) is as hearty as any meat sandwich (without the gastronomic or digestive indignity of processed soy), enriched by thick umami notes from red beet and romesco, on bread from Fleur de Lis bakery. The menu at Slow and Low is minimal, to say the least—the sandwiches currently number four—and the focus is very tight on slow-cooked (for 12 hours!) pork cuts, fusion-influenced condiments such as a sterling kimchi mayo, and house-pickled roots (beet, fennel, onion, carrot, daikon). With my German-Polish palate, trained from early youth that savory + pickled was the unparalleled formula for culinary success, it’s unsurprising that Slow and Low is already one of my favorite carts in town.
- Best bite:We’ll call it a tie between the confit and the chipotle-coconut pork butt ($8).
- Cheapest bite: Your range here nil: All the sandwiches are $8. Might we suggest the portabella?
EAT: Slow and Low is located at East Burnside Street and 7th Avenue, slowandlowpdx.com. Open 11 am-7 pm Thursday-Tuesday. $ Inexpensive.
