This joyful stress would begin with the city’s most important meal: breakfast. Despite its laid-back aura, Portland is an early-rising town, and its commuting cyclists need fuel for their morning rides. They could do worse than stop at Bunk Sandwiches, which in the six months since it opened has started a meat-and-other-things-on-bread renaissance by combining high-quality ingredients in innovative ways.

The house creations appear each day on a chalkboard near the doorway — an Oregon albacore tuna melt, a P.B.L.T. of pork belly, lettuce and green tomato pickles — but at 7 a.m. there’s really only one choice, the classic breakfast sandwich (sausage patty, sharp Tillamook Cheddar and a fried egg on a poppy-seed hard roll, $5). As is, it’s stellar. But add anchovies ($2), and it’s something else entirely, the fishy saltiness amping up the sausage’s sweetness and the tartness of the cheese. Seven bucks may seem a lot, but for the best breakfast sandwich ever, it’s a bargain.

Another morning, I met my friend Alison Williams Colman and her husband, Laurence Colman, at Broder, a Scandinavian brunch spot on a quintessentially Portland section of Southeast Clinton Street. (Bike lane? Check. Brewery? Check. Discount art-house cinema? Vintage stores? Punk rock record shops? Check, check, check!) Broder was packed, but the free coffee in the next-door waiting room kept us going until we could squeeze into a table and order some smoked-trout hash. When the $41 check came, Alison surprised me by whipping out a $25 coupon she’d bought for $2 on Restaurant.com. The waiter accepted it without a peep (he got a big tip), and I marveled again at how well Portlanders live on so little.

Portland’s food carts may be the best example of that. Carts have existed for roughly a decade, offering low-cost lunchtime grub, but in the last couple of years they’ve exploded in numbers and ambition, with cuisines ranging from Mexican and Thai to Korean and Kazakh to Dutch waffles and Belgian fries. (A Russian cart even found brief fame as a destination on last season’s “Amazing Race” finale, but it has since closed.)

Today, there are almost 400 carts around Portland, most of them clustered into “pods” that ring parking lots, and thanks to low start-up costs and Multnomah County’s straightforward licensing and inspection regime, aspiring chefs can make their names without major investments. As a New Yorker I was jealous; as the Frugal Traveler, overjoyed at what I could find within a single pod. The slices ($2 to $3) at Give Pizza a Chance were excellent, with a thin inner crust, a thicker, chewy outer crust and fresh, brightly flavored toppings (like the tomatoes, basil, artichokes and onions on the “Compost” slice). Next door, at Tábor, I followed the painted instructions to “Czech Out Czech Food” and fell in love with the schnitzelwich ($6.50), a fried pork or chicken cutlet bound to soft bread with ajvar (a red-pepper spread) and stinging horseradish sauce. Brunch Box, around the corner, was making its own English muffins, plus crazy burgers like the OMG! ($6), a cheeseburger with egg, ham, SPAM and bacon; and the YouCanHasCheeseburger ($5), a patty stuck between two Texas-toast grilled cheese sandwiches. (Bring Lipitor.)

One of the best things about food carts, in Portland and elsewhere, is getting to talk to the person who’s cooking your meal. Ziba Ljucevic, who runs Ziba’s Pitas, is one of the sweetest operators in all of Portland’s pods. A Bosnian immigrant, she arrived in 2002 just after the Balkan wars, speaking almost no English but fluent in the culinary language of her homeland. Unlike Greek pitas, Ms. Ljucevic’s are round, bready pies of surpassing lightness, stuffed with ground meat, spinach, zucchini or (my favorite) eggs, cheese and sour cream. For $5.95, she’ll give you a quarter of each, plus cucumber salad and a puddle of ajvar, and if you chat with her, as I did, about regional pita variations among the former Yugoslav republics, she may throw in a free drink.

The food carts even have Portland’s second-favorite beverage covered. Spella Caffè, next door to Ziba’s, pulls what I deemed the best espresso in Portland, rich and mellow. At $1.75, it’s also the least expensive of the city’s high-end coffee drinks. At Stumptown’s several locations, the sharp, bitter and acidic shot costs $2. It’s meant to go with milk, they say; alas, I can’t drink milk.