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A lot of love in Bucket Bites’ pasties
By the way, it’s
pronounced ‘pass-teez’
By RYAN HUME
FOR COAST WEEKEND
T
he name Bucket Bites alone didn’t
exactly prepare me for what I was
about to dive into at this food truck
parked perpendicular to the popular El
Asadero on Marine Drive near the Astoria
Eco Wash.
For me, the word “bucket” conjures
up piles of glistening fried chicken, but
after a look at their logo, it becomes clear
that “bucket” here refers to a metal lunch
pail. Leave it then to the truck itself and
its handsome paint job to announce what
owners Christine and Chris Karna are
really shelling: pasties and gravy and pies
and sides.
The truck’s exterior even offers a tip
on correct pronunciation to the uniniti-
ated. It’s “pass-teez,” not “pay-steez,” like
the nipple guards. Though Christine Karna
doesn’t mind if you mispronounce it, “I
may make you dance for your food,” she
joked.
Pasties, imported to the States long ago
from England, are a hand pie or turnover
spiritually linked to empanadas or cal-
zones. All sorts of meats and vegetables
can be slid onto a round of dough before it
is crimped and baked golden, and Bucket
Bites has many unique combinations, all
handmade by Karna herself and named
after different kinds of laborers the couple
knew from their time in Pennsylvania and
Alaska.
There are a few menu staples, as well
as a rotating pasty special to keep things
interesting. All cost $8.
A recent Gardener pasty was packed
with potatoes, riced cauliflower and ched-
dar cheese. The cheese seemed more of an
afterthought, offering no stringy pulls or
gooey pockets, but it did keep the heavy
vegetable filling from getting too dry. The
saving grace here was a cup of tomato and
roasted pepper soup that Christine Karna
smartly sold as a “near-gravy” vegetarian
option. Each dunk provided the moisture
the pasty needed and ended up becoming
the predominant, tangy flavor of the meal.
The Prospector faired a similar fate. It
MOUTH OF THE COLUMBIA
Bucket
Bites
• Rating: 3 stars out of a possible 5
• Address: 490 W. Marine Drive, Astoria
• Hours: Winter hours: noon-4:30 p.m.
Wednesday; 11 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Thursday/
Friday/Saturday. Note: Hours can be spo-
radic. They often close early if they sell
out. Check Facebook for updates. Orders
can also be placed in advance for pick-up
by texting 503-495-4995.
• Price: $
• Service: Most days, this is a one-woman
show. Christine Karna has a gregarious
bedside manner. The service is fast when
the order is in stock.
• Vegetarian/vegan options: There is
always one if not two rotating vegetarian
pasties on the menu each week. Some
are vegan but not always. Rotating soups
are also often vegetarian and vegan.
• Drinks: Coke products, bottled water
and teas — general food truck beverages.
should be noted that Bucket Bites bakes
its pasties throughout the day until they
are gone. There was one Prospector left on
the hot rack but another batch would be
coming fresh from the oven in five min-
utes. I opted not to wait, but in the future, I
would. The combination features scratch-
made corned beef, eggs and home fries.
Time is not kind to scrambled eggs, and
a heat lamp can be a cruel tanning bed.
While the corned beef offered excellent
flavor, the eggs at this point had cemented
rather than offering a pillowy counterpoint
to the heft of the diced potatoes.
This, again, put a lot of pressure on the
$2 side of sausage gravy, which Christine
Karna recommended to accompany this
pasty. Sausage gravy, that Southern sta-
ple that has become ubiquitous at break-
Ryan Hume
Slater pasty, beef gravy, cole slaw from
Bucket Bites.
fast spots coast to coast, can have a viscos-
ity running from skim milk to gelatinous.
Bucket Bites rightly errs on the thinner
side. It still has enough weight to coat a
spoon, but it does also trickle through the
cracks in the filling’s foundation, lubricat-
ing every bite.
The above is meant less as a criticism
and more as a realization of the reality
Bucket Bites faces.
Most food carts, or restaurants for that
matter, can prep their ingredients, then
cook to order. Selling hot baked goods
requires more time and a heap of faith.
Anticipate too much business and things
sit too long. Not enough business and you
have to turn customers away. It’s an unen-
viable tightrope walk for sure, but one that
the owners of this young truck seem well
aware of mastering through social media
feedback, customer interaction and experi-
mentation with their hours and output.
There’s a lot of love put into this food,
and the service is quick and affable when
everything syncs up.
Case in point: The $6 Scotch egg (or
Squatch egg, as the menu slyly references
Bigfoot) was a perfect egg redemption.
The panko exterior was crispy, the house-
made sausage packed around the perfectly
cooked egg — rested to about one degree
south of hard-boiled — was juicy and fla-
vorful. The real kicker was the homemade
mustard sauce, known as Bucket Sauce,
that was laced with peach and jalapeño
jam (regular deli mustard is also avail-
able). While jalapeño can certainly heat
things up, the application here was sub-
tle, with the peach bringing out the fruitier
aspects of the pepper. Any punch is deliv-
ered by the Dijon base.
Obviously, this isn’t the lightest fare.
Any one of these pasties could easily
crush nearly half a dozen Hot Pockets just
by sitting on them. Unless you are bring-
ing a dockworker’s appetite to the table,
you could probably squeeze two meals out
of any pasty, or split one if you and your
lunch date are simpatico.
Depending on the filling ingredients,
they do reheat quite well in a 375-degree
oven wrapped in foil to prevent addi-
tional browning. A recent experiment with
a Slater came out piping hot — no worse
for wear. This is a good possibility to con-
sider for an easy weeknight dinner for two
as Bucket Bites continues to operate on
shorter, somewhat irregular winter hours.
(I would certainly recommend checking
their Facebook page, which they update
regularly on hours and sell-outs.)
The Slater was my favorite pasty. The
ground beef and pork lent their natural
juiciness to the filling, keeping the pota-
toes moist. Again, the smoked cheddar
was more of an extra than an ensemble
player, but the smoky notes were present.
I’m not sure I would have recognized the
peperoncinis if they had not been listed on
the menu.
Pairing this with a nice tangy and
crispy coleslaw was a good move. The
weightless, bright dressing was a good
contrast to the heavy pastry. But, again,
the real star was the side of beef gravy.
Rich, tangy and with just the right consis-
tency, this gravy deserves to be bottled,
sold and revered.
Bucket Bites is a welcome and unique
addition to Astoria’s food truck scene that
still needs a bit of breadth to figure out the
timing and flow of its service hours. Don’t
miss the gravies, sauces and sides, and
keep in mind the filling ingredients and
their time out-of-oven when deciding on
a pasty.
Bucket Bites also bakes a variety of
sweets, including cream-filled whoopie
pies, but I was always too stuffed to get
there. CW