Some of my favorite Mexican inspired food of recent memory has been from the food cart The Meddling Lime located at 6200 SE Milwaukie Ave in Portland, OR. Tacos, burritos, pozole, breakfast burritos/tacos, but also fare like bowls and crispy rice dishes. They have a really deep menu that is executed flawlessly and is built around their exceptionally delicious proteins. Each meat is cooked and seasoned to perfection. Options are Al Pastor, Carnitas, Braised Beef, Verde Chicken, Fried Chicken, Pork Belly, Chili Poached Shrimp, Pan Seared Blackened Cod. So, some traditional, and some clearly not like fried chicken! Each of these really sing, but my favorites are the fried chicken, shrimp and cod. They are flavor bombs! Also lowkey some of the best fried chicken in town. I’d order it by itself! But throw it on a crispy rice dish? Yes please. They have been serving food for 7 years now out of their food cart and are a favorite of the locals. I go down often to sample from the deep menu. Prices are great, the folks are friendly, and the food comes out quick. What more could you want?! Now on to the food

Got to start with their tacos, they are incredible! Really some of the best I’ve eaten, not only in PDX but in the whole world! Street taco sized but stuffed extra full with the delicious protein of your choice and each one thoughtfully executed and unique to each taco, not just copy-and-paste. Seriously, I could go into in depth detail on the ingredients of each taco! But I’ll keep it reasonable and just list what I ordered on this summer day. From L-R: Chili Poached Shrimp, Blackened Cod, Al Pastor, Fried Chicken. Taco heaven. This is the best taco lineup I’ve ever eaten. Full stop.

Crispy Rice with fried chicken. Wow, so flavorful! Crispy rice, if it’s good enough for Bobby Flay, it’s good enough for me. This was what I ordered yesterday. Originally I had a hankering for pozole, but then realized I had never tried their crispy rice dish so I pivoted. Pan seared rice dish topped with avocado salsa, crema, pico de gallo, queso fresco, sunny-side egg, and cilantro. Really wonderful, and like I said before, the fried chicken! On one hand, a braised meat like the beef or verde chicken might have been more cohesive with this dish, but on the other hand, I can say this is the first time I’ve ever had crispy rice with fried chicken and I’m not mad about it!

Chimichanga. Deep fried flour tortilla “burrito” filled with rice, beans, and cheese then topped with avocado salsa, crema, pico de gallo, and queso fresco on shredded lettuce. This is one of my fave dishes of all time, even if I feel like a total gringo for ordering it, I don’t care, it’s delicious! I’ve gotten this several times, but the last time was with braised beef and it was perfect and flavorful all the way through.

Pozole. Pork, Chicken, and Hominy Stew.  Served with radish, cilantro, cabbage, and limes. Simple, hearty, comforting. A good, if not standout pozole. This was the “small” for $8 which honestly is a killer deal. Besides their incredible food, their prices are really reasonable and definitely put The Meddling Lime in the running for “best bang for your buck” category.

The Bowl. Mexican spiced rice, black beans with roasted poblano pepper, verde salsa, crema, pico de gallo, shredded lettuce, Oaxaca cheese. $12 on its own, $15 with protein of your choice. I got the pan seared blackened Cod because I am obsessed with their cod! It is so flavorful. Ultimately it works best in the tacos where it can shine more on its own, but this was still a really complete and delicious lunch and a steal at $15 for the quality and portion size.

Okay let’s move on to the breakfast inspired fare now. For awhile they opened up a second cart right next to the first one to handle breakfast duties, but now it appears they have consolidated and serve everything out of the original cart. Bonus points that they serve the breakfast items all day. If you’re a reader of this blog or follower on IG, you know that I am obsessed with breakfast burritos! Heck there’s even a breakfast burrito roundup post on this page if you haven’t read it already. So I was super stoked when The Meddling Lime added some options to their already deep menu. Above is the breakfast burrito: flour tortilla, scrambled eggs with crema and jalapeno salsa, avocado salsa, pasilla aioli, cheddar-oaxaca cheese mix, hash browns. $10 on its own, $12 with protein added, which again, is a great deal. I added fried chicken to this one and it was crazy delicious! This is a really excellent breakfast burrito. Highly recommend going this route. Also I want to shout out their incredible salsas, which are not pictured. They have a really great smoky jalapeno salsa, an avocado salsa, habanero and an arbol (red).

Breakfast Tacos. The top one is a vegetarian corn and poblano taco with Corn and Roasted Poblano, scrambled egg, roasted jalapeno salsa, queso fresco, pickled red onion, cilantro. Really tasty, the flavor of the corn shines and you don’t miss meat on this one. I love poblano peppers. The bottom one is their Pork Belly Taco, Pasilla-Brown Sugar rubbed Pork Belly, scrambled egg, roasted jalapeno salsa, queso fresco, pickled red onion, cilantro. Again, really tasty flavors. My only complaint on this one is that the pork belly was really thick and a bit tough and so didn’t eat cohesively with the rest of the taco. I will say that I ordered this right after they rolled out their breakfast menu that includes the pork belly, so there’s a good chance that he has smoothed out the execution since then.

And let’s go out like we came in, with another plate of tacos! Not quite as happy with this photo, but really it’s all about the tacos. From L-R: cod, chipotle braised beef, shrimp, pastor.

I highly recommend this cart. They are serving up top notch Mexican inspired fare where the meats are perfectly cooked and seasoned, and each ingredient is cooked with care. Each meal and taco assembled perfectly for both the eye and belly. Small details like the pickled escabeche on the cod taco, or the fact that the pineapple is caramelized on the pastor tacos. It’s details like this that make The Meddling Lime one of the best food carts in town. Really just some of the best food in town. I love Portland because some times the best food comes from a cart, sometimes from a dive bar (did someone say Reel M Inn?) or from any number of special pop ups. And of course traditional restaurants as well. Josh is a real deal chef and used to be the executive at the venerable (and legendary) Tasty n Alder. Happy eating!