Escape Adulthood

Gooey Goodness at the Grilled Cheese Grill

- - - | written by on | - - -


As I mentioned in a recent post about our first visit to Portland, one of my favorite parts about the city was the food carts. There are tons of these things, clustered in various locations, featuring cheap and yummy cuisine of all types. (Check out www.foodcartsportland.com for a better feel.)

My biggest problem was deciding where to eat.

In my family, stories about my early childhood fits of indecision are legendary. My mom is fond of telling them. She’d warn people against giving me choices, for if faced with but a “simple” decision between vanilla ice cream or chocolate, tears would eventually follow.

I like to think I’ve gotten better, but when it came to these food carts, it took me a long, long time to make up my mind.

However, there was one place, after having read about it in a travel guide, I knew I wanted to try: The Grilled Cheese Grill. This is an un adulterated Adultitis Hospital, people!

As you might have guessed, they specialize in grilled cheese sandwiches. Here’s a blurb from their menu about what makes them special:

So other than it being amazingly delicious, why come to us? Why not stay home and make a Grilled Cheese? We all know how to make it; just cheese, bread, and butter. It’s probably the first thing any of us learned to cook when we were kids. Well here are 4 reasons why you want to come to us:

1. With a full menu of cheeses, breads, and other good stuff, we make sandwiches that range from Saturday morning cartoon worthy, all the way up to Jeopardy-level sophisticated. We’re just that versatile.

2. It’s an anecdotally-proven fact that food always tastes better when somebody else makes it, and usually even better if Mom made it. Well if you can’t get your mom to make you a grilled cheese right now, we’ll be your mom. A couple of bearded dudes in a food cart will be your mom.

3. You know you don’t feel like cooking anyway.

4. You probably don’t have a converted school bus or double decker bus at your house as a dining room. Conveniently, we do.

So come by for a taste of your childhood. Unless your childhood sucked, and then we’ll let ya have a taste of ours.

Sign me up.

As promised, they really do have a double decker bus, which does double duty as landmark and dining room.
Here is where you order. Two dudes are inside; one takes your order and the other makes the yummy treats from heaven.
We decided to eat on the second floor of the bus. As if there was any doubt.
The tables featured collages of school yearbook pictures. Classic touch of childhood.
Behold the Cheesus: a cheesburger that ditches the buns in favor of two grilled cheese sandwiches.
Yes, that's what I said.
My friend Sue gets her fair share of some gooey goodness.
Kim goes in for her first bite while Lucy's tiny body is possessed by the cheese spirits.
This poor sandwich never had a chance. Kim and I split it between the two of us, which makes me feel all responsible and heart health conscious. But just between us, I could have taken the big boy down all by myself. (And next time, I probably will.)

While all the food carts we had a chance to sample — too many carts, too little time! — we’re great, The Grilled Cheese Grill stood out in taste, ambiance, and Adultitis-fighting power.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. “That’s disgusting!”,
    “That looks awesome!”

    I’ll let you guess which one was me, and which was my wife :)

  3. Cool, a proper old Routemaster bus! I loved those things when I used to visit London as a child… by the time I spent a few years living there they were being phased out. Last year my friend and I went to a honey farm in the English/Scottish borders that had one as their dining room.

    And, yes, I’m going to have toasted cheese for my lunch now :)

    • Seems like a can’t miss to me! I just can’t believe we don’t have one of these in Wisconsin…I smell a business opportunity…

  5. Well, thanks to this post I tried the whole replace hamburger buns with grilled cheese sandwiches tonight. Quite yummy! Not sure I’d do it every time I had a hamburger, but I think I might do it again sometime. :)

    • Yes, as Cookie Monster now likes to say, “It’s a sometimes treat.” Glad you got to give it a try!