Gossip That Would Rather Marry The Ginger Prince.

1. CART ATTACK: WW held its annual Eat Mobile food cart festival on Saturday, April 23, with nearly 3,000 eaters gathering under the Morrison Bridge to sample from 39 different carts and vote for their favorites in the 2011 Carty Awards. Also enjoying the street eats was an all-star lineup of judges, including local chefs Naomi Pomeroy (Beast), Tommy Habetz (Bunk Sandwiches) and Adam Sappington (The Country Cat), who picked their own winner. Whiffies Fried Pies took the audience vote for a second year in a row, while the judges chose Fifty Licks ice cream as the most stylish cart, and newcomer Kim Jong Grillin’ as their favorite. Sadly, shortly after Kim Jong Grillin’ owner Han Ly Hwang finished serving his acclaimed bulgogi beef and smoked pork belly at the festival, his actual cart burst into flames at its pod on Southeast 48th Avenue and Division Street. “Kim Jong Grillin’ will rise like a phoenix from these ashes and bring you even more of the food our loyal patrons have come to love,” promises Hwang.

1. MEN NOT AT WORK: Proceeding on the valid premise that this town could always use more Raymond Carver, newly arrived filmmakers Andrew Franks and Alexander Atkins are preparing to adopt the Northwest writer’s short story “What Do You Do in San Francisco?” into a 10-minute film. The movie, which starts shooting in Southeast Portland in May and has been given the locally appropriate title Men Who Don’t Work, centers on a buttinski postman—and perhaps the most interesting aspect of the project is that Franks and Atkins have invited snooping (along with Kickstarter funding), making the screenplay and the production’s itemized budget available to read online at menwhodontwork.com.

1. FOOD WITH A CULT FOLLOWING: The old Taste of Jakarta space on Southwest Jefferson Street and 12th Avenue has finally found a new tenant: the Loving Hut, the international chain of vegan eateries run by Supreme Master Ching Hai International (which is also associated with Old Town’s Vegetarian House), a religion that worships a bizarre bleach-blond Vietnamese woman who dresses like a Disney rendering of a Southeast Asian princess and believes the planet must become vegan so it can ascend to a “higher galactic civilization” (lest we die out like those livestock-raising Martians, you see).

1. OLCC ROUND-UP: Rogue Brewery is planning to open a public house at PSU, in the former Paccini space on Southwest Park Avenue; a new brewpub called Sasquatch Brewery is looking to open on Southwest Capitol Highway; Cha! Cha! Cha! has applied for a license in the old Pixti space on North Lombard Street; and the Seven Rivers barbecue stall from the Rose Garden is taking over the old Su Casa spot on North Lombard. 

WWeek 2015