Portland Food Cart: Fried Egg I'm in Love

What: Fried Egg I'm In Love

Where: 3207 SE Hawthorne Blvd

When: Tues-Fri 8:30 AM - 2 PM, Sat-Sun 9 AM - 3 PM

Honeys Heart: Yolko Ono

It is a guarantee that Adam will order the breakfast sandwich when we go out for brunch. If there isn't a breakfast sandwich on the menu, he orders the necessary ingredients and creates his own. So for his birthday in December, we braved the cold, crisp air and headed to Fried Egg I'm In Love, a Hawthorne food cart focused entirely on breakfast sandwiches.

I went for the Yolko Ono ($7) with a fried egg, homemade pesto, parmesan, and a hand-pressed sausage patty. It's not what I had planned to order, but it's their "signature dish" and the guy in front of me ordered it and seemed like a regular so it had to be done. 

Adam went for a the heartier Egg Zeppelin ($8.50) with two eggs, two homemade sausage patties, two slices of Tillamook cheddar, and Aardvark aioli. Right up his alley! He was hungover from holiday party fun the night before and this hit the spot. 

We topped off our order with a $5 large mimosa. If you're going to wait outside in the cold you may as well have a drink. 

A couple other tempting options included the Sriracha Mix-A-Lot ($7) sandwich with a fried egg, seared ham, fresh avocado, tomato, havarti cheese, and sriracha and the 'Rito Suave ($7.50) burrito with two scrambled eggs, choice of protein, Tillamook cheese, avocado, and zesty cart pico. Reasons to return I suppose! But preferably on a warmer day...

Portland Brunch: Sweedeedee

What: Sweedeedee
Where: 5202 N. Albina
When: Mon - Sat 8 - 4pm, Sun 8 - 2pm
Honeys Heart: All of it

Katie has been working on the Portland content for Urban Daddy's The Next Move, a national restaurant/bar recommendation app that has since launched. Woot, Katie! Also, download it here.

Here's how it works: select a day, time, part of town, type of food or ambiance, and who you're with and it suggests a list of restaurants that fit your criteria. We decided to test it for a Saturday brunch date and that is sort of how we ended up at Sweedeedee...

Well, first we looked at the list and selected Meztica, but it turned out they only serve brunch on Sunday. Since we were in North Portland we almost redirected to an old favorite, John Street Cafe, then thought maybe Podnah's, and as we drove in circles and continued to explore the knowledge of the app, we finally picked Sweedeedee.

It is so quaint and adorable. The pictures don't do the space justice, but the white interior with shabby chic accents, shelves of pickling jars, classroom style roll down paper with a handwritten menu, and unique mix-match of furniture make the space homey and inviting.

Since it had taken some time to arrive at a destination, Katie got the Whiskey Cake from the pastry counter for us to share while we waited to be seated. (Pro tip: order at the counter. It can be a little confusing the first time you come in.) The cake, accompanied by mimosas, was a great start.

(Update!: Sweedeedee was just listed as one of the 25 Best New Restaurants in the U.S. by GQ... so expect even longer lines than usual. We showed up around 9am on a Saturday after the article ran and narrowly beat the crowd.) 

The egg sandwich ($8.50), Katie's pick, was made with egg, bacon, and shredded lettuce. The cornmeal molasses bread was thick and tasty on its own and definitely the star of this sandwich.

I am a sucker for a breakfast burrito ($9, with bacon) and this could have easily been shared. Filled with egg, potatoes, bacon, lettuce, guacamole and more, it was definitely satisfying.

An out-of-character selection for Adam was the potato plate ($11), but it is quite possibly what I would order if we returned. The potatoes were topped with an over-easy egg, smoked trout and greens. 

From the looks of the menu posted on their website, there may be slight adjustments, which all sound worth trying. Definitely a place we would return to...actually I think Katie already has!