Carte Blanche

I miss this cart so much. Easily the best cart in Portland. Eagerly awaiting the restaurant!

Carte Blanche focuses on doing a few things extremely well, with just enough improvisation to keep the staff focused on creating great flavors from a very compact kitchen. I had the crispy rice salad with Vietnamese-​inspired sweet and sour fish sauce tofu.
There were plenty of greens and an explosion of house pickled flavors. Now I’m fascinated with crispy rice which is new to me. The fish sauce tofu is tasty and is now on my home cooking experiment list too. I don’t eat cookies, but they had a pretty genius one which was an insanely good mash up of sweet and savory.
I visited when it wasn’t busy. They provided a precise pick up time, which was accurate; about 30 minutes.
They are negotiating with spaces for a brick and mortar location — stay tuned!

Yes it is sadly true they closed their doors 2÷14÷16.
Food orders were running upwards of 3 hour waits and luckily the food gods allowed me to get here in time to order one of everything and make my last holiday meal in PDX be the most memorable and most favorite noms of ever ever.
Luckily Chef Jessie and crew have announced they do have a new brick n mortar location somewhere on Division which will continue the love and genius they started here.
kudos to this kitchen and thank you for holy bijoly goodness.
F yes.
Do join their email list, follow their social media accounts because the people here really are rockstars and worthy of pilgrimages to PDX.
for myself I am copying and pasting what I ate and did share with others as this was all too good to eat alone.
SALAD
Winter Crispy Rice Salad — ($ 10)
Your choice of crispy glazed Ota tofu OR fried chicken (w/​fish sauce glaze or peanut sauce), organic greens, cabbage, honey crisp apple, strawberries, ginger & lemongrass, crispy shallots, avocado, peanuts, cashews, coconut, sesame & pickled peppers in Thai lime dressing. (*v)
RICE BOWLS
Commencing Countdown, Engines On — ($ 12)
Coconut-​cashew-​kaffir lime crusted prawns, basil jasmine rice, stir-​fried kale and winter vegetables in tom kha reduction, Thai crispy egg, chili-​pineapple slaw, avocado, herbs and greens, toasted peanuts and sesame, crispy shallots, pickled ginger & peppers, lime.
Important Helmet for Outer Space — ($ 10)
Your choice of Thai glazed Ota tofu OR slow-​roasted pork, stir-​fried vegetables, coconut jasmine rice, chili-​lime slaw, fresh herbs, roasted peanuts, fried shallots, arugula, sesame, pickled ginger & peppers, lime. (*v)
SANDWICH
The Trouble With Ghosts — ($ 10)
Your choice of za’atar & honey seasoned fried chicken OR eggplant, caramelized onions, roasted peppers, honey crisp apple, chevre, avocado, arugula, fresh pesto, praline bacon, & aleppo aioli on a Grand Central hoagie roll. Served with smashed potato lemon-​dill hash with roasted jalapeño-​rosemary ketchup. (*v)

Easily one of the most flavor-​filled meals I’ve ever eaten. I was skeptical and didn’t want to believe the hype going in. But here’s some perspective on how good it was: I don’t eat mushrooms… can’t stand them. Didn’t realize the rice bowl I ordered came with mushrooms until I was two or three bites into it… and I didn’t care! I ate it all!

I don’t know how I missed eating here! Probably my last time because they are graduating to a brick and mortar and feb 14^th is their last day as a cart.
All I can say is WOW! Not an extensive menu which is good because that means more care is given in cooking the limited number of options. Yes there is a wait because they cook to order and I don’t mind a wait for a delicious meal.
I got the shrimp rice bowl. There are so many ingredients and so many flavor explosions happening in your mouth in each bite that you just can’t stop eating!
My husband got the zatar fried chicken sandwich. Zatar fried chicken?! Who would have thought? It was delicious and even this sandwich had so many ingredients that together created this magical flavor profile.
If that’s how they keep on doing it in their restaurant I will be a regular there!

Okay, every other review will tell you how EFFIN amazing their food is. I have something else important to mention:
The location is horribly. Ew ew ew ew ew I was eating there the other day and saw like five rats run through the parking lot. There’s a bunch of homeless guys that sleep about 20 feet away. And they are the bad level homeless guys. The ones you don’t want to interact with. I know these guys.
It’s just a terrible spot. Feels gross because it is gross. I wish they would move somewhere else.
But I still eat there at least once a week. Why? Because it’s some of the best food I’ve ever had. Ever. And it changes every week so it’s never repetitive to return. I can recommend their food more. It’s amazing. It’s perfect.
I would give the location one star. But I won’t give them one star, that would be a crime.

It took them over 40 minutes to prepare my date’s sandwich. They had issues with the fryer. But here’s the thing. Don’t come to the table with a refund in cash and ASK a guy if he wants a refund in front of his date. That was embarrassingly mishandled by the staff. The food is amazing. Now I have to say the staff behavior is not.

One of the best food carts I have ever had! I normally don’t go for salads but their food is amazing here! There’s some table seating behind them underneath a heating lamp.
I got the winter crispy rice salad ($ 10) with crispy glazed tofu and filled with ingredients like apple, cashews, coconut and covered in Thai lime dressing with delicious peanut sauce. It was a really unique dish!
My boyfriend got the Important Helmet for Outer Space rice bowl ($ 10). This was my favorite order. I loved the flavorful stir-​fried vegetables and jasmine rice. We also tried the cookie for $ 3 which had a mix of pretzels, graham cracker, chocolate chips, etc. I LOVED it. Probably one of my favorite cookies of all time.
Overall fantastic choice for a food truck. There’s a reason why they have such high ratings!

Get the salad with a side of peanut sauce. The salad is the only dish I have tried so far but it is so incredible that I don’t want to ever go to Carte Blanche without getting the salad. This dish bursts with so many great flavors. My mouth is watering just writing about it.

Carte Blanche is my favorite food truck in Portland. It is right on Hawthorne Boulevard and I had an easy time finding parking on a nearby side street. I ordered the fish bowl and it is incredible. The fried tilapia is fresh and did not feel too greasy. The seasoning is perfect. It has enough kick for great flavor but not too spicy. It is the ideal balance for me. The potatoes and kale inside the dish are very crisp. The avocado and broccoli are great complements and also seasoned flawlessly. The cold slaw is good too. Everything in the fish bowl is amazing. Moreover, there is a heavenly scent when you open the box of food. In my opinion, this food truck is a must try if you visit Portland.
If you are traveling the Portland area and looking for recommendations, please see

Completely impressed by this cart. We stopped in for a late lunch today, and once we placed our orders, we wondered if we had made a mistake. The dishes all have a fairly long list of ingredients and components, and some of it is stuff I wouldn’t think of putting together. It seemed a bit over-​complicated, but we stayed the course!
DH ordered the chicken sandwich and I ordered the Important Helmet bowl. I have to say, in both meals, I was shocked at how incredibly delicious it all was. Despite the long list of ingredients that went into each dish, somehow it all worked perfectly together and it wasn’t «too much» or too complicated. My favorite food cart experience on our trip here to Portland!

The boy-​o and I stopped by Carte Blanche on our way home, thinking that we might need to add a salad to our diet after a weekend of far too much porchetta & drinks. I think we visited towards the end of their day, as the entire corner they were on was pretty empty, but yay for shorter waits, at least!
CRISPY RICE SALAD w/​FRIED CHICKEN.
This salad was pretty insane, I will say that — organic greens, pineapple, mixed nuts, toasted coconut, avocado, and more in a sweet lime-​chili-​coconut dressing. At $ 10 a pop, I was a little dismayed to see the size of the to-​go box, but they really pack it in there. I think the only thing I didn’t love about the salad was that the fried chicken tasted more like reheated frozen chicken (based on the coating) than fresh fried chicken.
Overall, Carte Blanche turns out some truly delicious stuff, and while I’m bummed their rotating menu means no guarantee of what you’ll find when you go, the passion and talent in their little food-​cart-​kitchen is evident.

Despite all the raves over the past few years and a failed attempt last week, I finally made it to Carte Blanche. After hiking around a park, I was hungry for lunch so my friend and I came around 1:30pm – no line or lunch rush when we arrived, the convenience of eating late lunches. We both ordered the BLT! because it sounded amazing, she also got a Compost Cookie and I got an order of the Grilled Corn on the Cob.
Received the cookie while waiting for our food to be made-​to-​order. I had a bite of the cookie and, oh my god, I am glad I didn’t get my own because it’s dangerous. It was their take on Momofuku’s compost cookies – I tasted the chocolate chips, toffee, potato chips and pretzels in it. Crunchy, melty chocolate chip cookies are the best but the saltiness elevated it. After the cookie got devoured, our sandwiches come out. The BLT had honey-​smoked bacon, heirloom tomatoes, romaine, basil, caper aioli, balsamic, apple, and crispy shallots. I already knew it would be good, I am picky about tomatoes… only like heirloom tomatoes when sliced and Como bread from Grand Central. It was an explosion of flavors, the best part was the honey crisp apple – it provided a contrasting sweetness and texture to the sandwich. I’ve never had corn so dressed up before, it had an aioli, pesto, basil, queso fresco, and fried shallot on it. So intensely flavorful. For all those thinking you don’t like Elote, this is not Elote, must try this. Only ate half my sandwich and half my corn on the cob so I had enough leftover for dinner.
I like that they change up their menu every week, it gives you variety and something new each time you go. I get sad when I love an item and it gets rotated off the menu, I am sure everything else is just as delicious. Such a creative combination of flavors for this foodcart.

Speechless.
I had the best salad of my life. Well worth the 30 minute wait and struggle to waft a dozen bees away from my face that also wanted my salad.
Run down of what I ate: crispy rice salad with seasame-​peanut sauce chicken. Loaded with extras like avacado, cashews, peach, ginger, peppers and strawberries.
Salad was so large that I could have shared, but thank God I travel alone and had a one person food orgasm.
Do yourself a solid and go alone too. Who needs company? You won’t be talking, just mmmm… mmmm… mmmmmm’ing.

Wow! This place actually really surprised me. When my vegetarian friend tells me she’s dragging me to a vegan place I usually go in with a ho-​hum attitude. Even more so when I walk up to this truck with no one else around and they tell us it’s going to take 30 minutes before it’s ready… what?!? I have no idea what they’re doing back there but boy was it worth it.
We got a vegan tofu bowl and to be honest I don’t know what the flavor was because it was like swirl of flavors. Alls I know is I fell in love with that tofu and I am not a fan of tofu.

I don’t think I can count all the ingredients in my bowl. At first glance, it seemed really overwhelming and I didn’t know why some ingredients were in there. But in the end, everything little ingredient served its purpose and together they created an explosion of flavors in my mouth. That creamy coconut rice with bits of crispy fried shallots and crunchy peanuts mixed in with fresh greens and protein… I want a bowl right now!
I thought the Important Helmet for Outer Space bowl was great and the Animal Eyes in Alaska was not as great… It was just so much heavier with the fried eggplants AND fried chicken. If you’re a fried foods kinda person, then you’ll love it. Next time though, I’ll just stick with my Helmet bowl. The staff is SUPER friendly too, so big bonus!
Tips:
~ you can phone in your order and they’ll accept it as long as they answer the phone or not sold out.
~ be prepared to wait. my order last time took about 30 minutes.

Just the best. Made the extra effort to make it to this food truck to try it’s delicious, fresh, perfectly flavorful bowls!
My friends and I shared the Hemet bowl which came with perfectly crispy tofu, avocado, lots of fresh veggies, and much more! I can’t even explain all the flavors of his bowl, a little spicy, some sweetness from the pineapple tid bits etc!
Although the wait for our food was 30 minutes, it was well worth it.

I’m not sure what i’d need to be craving to want to come here i.e. chinese, mexican, etc because the flavors are so off the wall in their food they don’t really fall into a general cuisine. Perhaps try this place when you can’t decide what to eat. Here’s what we split between three of us.
Important Helmet for outer space — so many flavors going on here, the pork stands out as sweet and salty, take a bit of veggies with the pork to even out the saltyness.
Animal eyes in Alaska — This is their new bowl they said, Fried Chicken then coated in a tamarind asian kinda glaze, candied eggplant pieces, lots of veggies, coconut rice, cucumber avocado salad. This bowl was good, a little sweet for my taste, but we still destroyed it.
Pesto corn with fresh feta, crunchy shallots, chipotle mayo? — amazing, def order.
These three items were plenty of food for the three of us, two guys 1 girl. We all agreed that this felt like a guilt free lunch given all the veggies in there. Give them a try, the staff was very nice.

This is NOT a me too 5 star review. Hands down some of the most fresh innovative and tasty food I have had. The depth of flavors are so deep and each flavor so unique but gelling so well that it creates an amazing taste explosion in your mouth.
I found this place through Unilocal and wanted to check it out asap. Went there and ordered the rice bowl with tofu and «have a set» chicken sandwich without bacon. The sandwich was well done with complex flavors. My vote for the best dish ever would go to the tofu rice bowl. Oh man the tofu was so good, damn I think after this review I will drive down again to Carte Blanche. Portland has such unique places to eat that its amazing.
The owner did say they change the menu every other month or so and I am planning to go back for sure.

This is my back to back trip to this place. The first one, I had to wait a bit, they literally just got hit by dinner rush and the two chefs were working as hard and fast as they cloud to bust out orders left and right. I’m probably not the most patient person you’ll meet when it comes to waiting, and yes I just refuse to wait for food. However, I really wanted to try this place. So by the time I got my food, I got home (starving) and literally devoured it in a nano second. Don’t get me wrong it was freaking amazing, however I felt like I was so hungry I didn’t get a chance to just appreciate every single bite. Yeah, I know but I like to actually taste ANYTHING that I eat. So I decided to come back today, they were quickly picking up for lunch hour, but my wait was much shorter, I say 15 minutes tops?! So, after all this blabbering, how was the food you may ask…
Geez Louise! I don’t even know where to start. Yes, I’m speechless. I know, right?!! Who creates mind blowing, flavor bursting, melts in your mouth, freaking foodgasm deliciousness?!! Dear Carte Blanche, where have you been all my life?!! This has to be one of the best post work out meal ever! Yes, you even made this horrendous «valentine’s day» an epic one. With your fancy coconut rice, pork goodness and look at that explosive arrays of colors?!! Yup, I’m eating my veggies! This is insane on the membrane type goodness! I don’t give five stars often, so when I do you know it’s damn special! The fact that it’s on the healthier side of things landed it’s 5^th star from this reviewer. Yes, health junkie over here with a severe case of sweet addiction lol