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I was thrilled when contacted by Ben Waterhouse of Willamette Week to be a judge for this event.  I love street food, I often drive downtown to hit the 10th street carts for Aybla’s gyros.  After seeing the list of competing carts however, I was already biased towards Flavour, my favorite cart in all the land.  They serve a hand-held dutch waffle taco filled with various combinations of delicious.  Anyway; as my brother and I approach the venue, we scoot to the front of the 2 block long line.  We meet Ben at the gate;  I get my judges packet, bypassing throngs of sharp looks and hungry faces.  Once inside, I get my wristband and grab an Aquavit cocktail from Matt at House Spirits. After that, Jaybill and I ate it all. A clean sweep of the open outdoor area, revisiting a table to eat and discuss.  At our first booth we were pushed aside by a Oscar Bluth look-alike in a Trailblazers jersey.  After that we waded to the front of long lines with our judges badge, accepting sidelong glances and the hottest plates of food.  We filled out our score cards without getting too much sauce on them.  Once inside, the waffle smell engulfed us, and hey…more cocktais!  If you held a gun to my head and asked what I remembered, I’d say: smoked salmon and cream cheese ice cream, banana nutella grilled cheese, bees knees cocktails, hot chicks and hot sauce with a warm setting sun on vegan tacos.  A search party of volunteers searched for me while the other judges dilberated, I was roaming drinking and eating.  The grassroots of this event and the frequent familiar faces led me to a satiated inebriation, a stuttering acceptance of existence during something awesome, a fat slice of time with toasted meringue, perfect clarity.  Tits and champagne as they say.  The judges ruled as I would have, had I been there, to rule.  Junior Ambassador took the cake with his salmon ice cream, his Sgt Pepper’s style coat.  Grilled Cheese Grill man took the stage fighting tears and clutching the people’s choice award.  Thier booth was by far the most fun, with laughing and carrying on and cooking of great grilled sandwiches. Nutella and mascarpone, on cinnamon swirl bread?  Holy shit.  Check out the menu for this cart, mainly the Cheesus Burger.  Flavour got some kind of honorable mention,  I guess they were out of their element. They waffles just weren’t the same for some reason.  How could they compete with Junior’s maple bacon ice cream anyway?

Two guys that ate wat too much.  But picked up Oreos on the way home…