Portland: Where quirk and comfort combine

  • By Tom Sietsema The Washington Post
  • Thursday, July 23, 2015 3:45pm
  • Life

Imagine a city where no one honks their horn and drivers pause mid-block to assure pedestrians safe passage from one sidewalk to another.

Picture an urban landscape painted in rivers, forests and mountains — Frontierland as if created by Alice Waters.

Envision a part of the world where waiters write “Albion” before “strawberries” on a chalkboard menu to flag a local treat, taxi drivers tag the restaurant you’re going to when you simply say the address (“Pok Pok!”), breakfast and brunch are practically civic duties, an entire bookstore is devoted to matters of home and garden, and some of the Thai cooking rivals Chiang Mai’s raciest.

Welcome to Portland, as in Oregon, the land of milk and honey — also coffee, tea, beer, wine, game, berries, crab, salmon, ice cream in flavors lifted from food trucks and olive oil that chefs compare favorably to Italy’s liquid gold.

Dubbed Stumptown, a nickname acquired in the mid-19th century when logging outpaced the full clearing of trees, Portland is weird. Setting the stage for five days of eating my way around Portland in June, a friend and resident forecast a satirical sketch comedy: “Everything you see on ‘Portlandia’? It’s kind of true.”

He was right.

World-class ingredients — from fresh strawberries to truffles — draw chefs to the area and keep them there. So do low rents, cheap liquor licenses and loose regulations, says Marc Hinton, author of “A History of Pacific Northwest Cuisine: Mastodons to Molecular Gastronomy.” The Portland-based blogger says, “You can be really small and make a whole lot of noise across the country.”

Or simply across the dining room, as at Pok Pok, where my cab driver at PDX dropped me off for a reunion with smoky, succulent game hen and funky, fiery ground duck liver — Thai food by enthusiast Andy Ricker that’s every bit as exciting as I remember it from my first meal at the outsize shack five years ago. (Like its residents, restaurant interiors here tend not to be flashy. The spotlight is reserved for the food.)

“We’re the Wild West of food,” says Karen Brooks, the influential food editor and critic of Portland Monthly. “People here channel the traditions they love, often European or Asian, and make them their own.”

Enter Bollywood Theater, a celebration of Indian street food; Langbaan, a speak-easy of a restaurant whose tasting menu transports diners to Thailand; and Nodoguru, a pop-up turned permanent Japanese feast — in a grocery store.

Every chef I spoke with credited an open and appreciative audience, diners with a keen interest in knowing where their food comes from, for spurring them on. “When you can look out your window and see Mount Hood and the Columbia River, people feel connected to the land,” says Cory Schreiber, a cooking instructor with the International Culinary School at the Art Institute of Portland.

For sure. Small-town Portland supports such niche concepts as Alma, an-all chocolate boutique created after its owner became frustrated with the choices available for filling her son’s Easter basket, and the Meadow, a curated selection of salt, bitters and chocolate from around the world. Portlanders can get CSA deliveries of ice cream, and coffee in waves. Stumptown set the bar high when it helped introduce farm-direct coffee bean sourcing and artisanal roasting in 1999, and unlike a certain competitor to the north, its coffee shops and wholesale accounts remain mostly local.

Pride of place is part of many food transactions. “Nobody just serves things,” says Brooks. “Everybody proudly serves” — whatever. At Burgerville, the fast-food feeder based in nearby Vancouver, summer specials feature fresh raspberry milkshakes and Walla Walla onion rings. Chefs gush about olive oil from Red Ridge Farms in the Dundee Hills. And guests who order coffee from room service at the new Hotel Eastlund are informed that the brew comes from “Ristretto Roasters, just down the street,” says an employee of the hotel bakery. “It’s a pretty big deal here.” (Pride with a side of chipperness is another Portland token.)

The biggest concern for any business in a city of just over 600,000 residents is the “challenge to remain unique” and stand out among the competition, says Marius Pop, a veteran of the refined Payard Patisserie in New York whose chic Nuvrei Bakery in Portland sells exquisite almond croissants and bite-size strawberry-basil caneles. “We don’t have enough people for as many options as there are,” he adds, which encourages chefs and others to work harder.

The city’s unofficial slogan — “Keep Portland Weird,” borrowed from Austin, Texas — pops up on signs and bumper stickers and gets realized in real life. Few American cities do quirk as deliciously as this one, evinced in part by one of the country’s most colorful food cart scenes.

Between 500 and 600 vendors occupy permanent spots in more than 40 lots, according to Brett Burmeister, the owner of Food Carts Portland, an online guide for street food fans. Incubators of talent, the lots typically see 10 or more vendors a year morph into bricks-and-mortar businesses.

Progressive urban planning allowed sausages, tacos and rice bowls to be dispensed from carts as far back as the mid-1980s, Burmeister says, but the concept snowballed in the mid-2000s along with the city’s enhanced restaurant scene. Some of the food cart pods come with entertainment, fire pits and even hair salons.

Name a cuisine or dish, and chances are good that a Portland cart has it covered. Insiders talk up the lefse and gravlax at Viking Soul Food, the Japanese street food at Buki and the pakora-fried chicken laced with black cardamom-spiced honey at Tiffin Asha. From its cart, the Bridgetown Bagel Company mixes, rolls, proofs, boils and bakes its signature from scratch.

While “it’s hard to find a standard hot dog anymore,” says Burmeister, he knows exactly where to go for reindeer sausage.

Travel series

Portland, Oregon is the latest a series by Washington Post food critic Tom Sietsema exploring the best food cities in the United States and what makes them great. He spends several days in each one eating, drinking and shopping to determine what makes a top-notch American food city.

Where to go

Ataula: 1818 NW 23rd Pl., 503-894-8904, ataulapdx.com; A rare taste of Spain in Stumptown, from Barcelona native Jose Chesa. He’s the skill behind braised veal on house-baked brioche, salt cod fritters and white gazpacho — sparkling with pineapple granita — and the smile that lights up the wood-beamed dining room. (Ataula is a Catalan phrase Chesa’s parents used back home; it means “To the table.”)

Bollywood Theater: 2039 NE Alberta St., 971-200-4711, 3010 SE Division St., 503-477-6699, www.bollywoodtheaterpdx.com; A stage set of a self-serve restaurant that evokes the colors and flavors of Mumbai. Snack on julienned fried okra hit with chilies, samosas crammed with lamb and spiced potatoes, and roasted beets tossed with curry leaves and coconut milk. The younger of the two branches, on SE Division Street in Southeast Portland, features a market selling Indian staples.

Castagna: 1752 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-231-7373, castagnarestaurant.com; Some of the most sophisticated food in town, from chef Justin Woodward. His summer tasting menu is informed by his time at the late WD-50 in New York. Highlights: Oregon shrimp with toasted jalapeño, green strawberries and kohlrabi; brined, smoked pork with blood orange-tinted hollandaise; French meringue, frozen in liquid nitrogen and served with goat milk ice cream.

Clyde Common: 1014 SW Stark St., 503-228-3333, www.clydecommon.com; This downtown tavern — “the living room of the city,” says critic Karen Brooks – hosts the most international happy hour. Knock back the $4 beers and $6 wines and cocktails with grilled duck hearts, saganaki and lumpia. Spring for the refreshing Spelling Bee: tequila, agave, absinthe and grapefruit peel.

Davenport: 2215 E. Burnside St., 503-236-8747, www.davenportpdx.com; The vibe is so relaxed that when you call to say you’re running late, you hear, “Oh, we don’t care.” Yet every taste — agnolotti floating with spring peas and porcinis in chicken broth, golden sand dabs with shaved asparagus — reveals a stickler’s attention. The care taken by chef Kevin Gibson extends to the wine service by Kurt Heilemann.

Food carts: www.foodcartsportland.com; A vibrant food cart scene lets customers graze around the world without leaving the city, thanks to upward of 500 carts parked in more than 40 lots. Food Carts Portland, edited by Brett Burmeister, keeps track of the vendors’ comings and goings and features maps of the “pods” and guided tours.

Langbaan: 6 SE 28th Ave., 971-344-2564, langbaanpdx.com; This dusky restaurant-within-a-restaurant is the city’s toughest reservation and its premiere Thai tour, led by Bangkok native Akkapong “Earl” Ninsom. His evolving tasting menu recently stopped in Chiang Mai for scallops, galangal and coconut cream in a tiny crispy-rice cup; fiery lamb tartare with mint, avocado and rice powder; and robust curry with pork belly, hanger steak, peanuts and ginger.

Nodoguro: 3735 SE Hawthorne Blvd., nodoguropdx.com; What began as a pop-up morphed last year into a captivating Japanese restaurant inside a grocery store. Chef Ryan Roadhouse’s tasting menus spring from a kaiseki obsession that permits delicious rule-bending, such as kelp-wrapped, sake-kissed abalone and sweet Dungeness crab draped in an egg dressing atop buckwheat.

Ox: 2225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 503-284-3366, oxpdx.com; The heart of this Argentine-inspired restaurant by Greg and Gabrielle Denton is the massive wood grill, from which emerge mouthwatering dishes. A few favorites: smoked beef tongue with sweetbread “croutons,” clam chowder with jalapeños and bone marrow, roseate ribeye from Uruguay, and artichokes cooked in coals.

Pok Pok: 3226 SE Division St., 503-232-1387, www.pokpokpdx.com; Andy Ricker snagged attention for Portland and Thai cooking 10 years ago when he opened a shack to serve the street food he had fallen hard for overseas. Not to be missed is the sticky, smoky game hen served with an eyelash-curling dipping sauce. Homemade drinking vinegars help fuel the cocktails and stanch any flames.

Renata: 626 SE Main St., 503-954-2708, www.renatapdx.com; This new Italian restaurant is awash with reasons to visit: The owner is a former frontman at the acclaimed French Laundry, the chef previously worked at the starry Quince in San Francisco and the cheese plate features fromage made by the creamery next door. Ace drinks, dewy geoduck crudo and a wood oven (pizza!) forecast a hot spot in the making.

Blue Star Donuts: Multiple locations, www.bluestardonuts.com; Forget Voodoo Doughnuts and try the refined rings at Blue Star, which relies on a French brioche recipe and local butter, milk, flour and cage-free eggs for its glorious creations: doughnuts in such flavors as Mexican hot chocolate and blueberry-bourbon-basil.

Heart: 2211 E. Burnside St., 503-206-6602, 537 SW 12th Ave., 503-224-0036, www.heartroasters.com; A spare coffee lab with a Nordic soul created by Finnish pro snowboarder Wille Yli-Luoma, whose recipe for an optimal cup of java starts with green beans and a light roast.

Ken’s Artisan Bakery: 338 NW 21st Ave., 503-248-2202, kensartisan.com; Master baker Ken Forkish, a former software engineer, makes a French walnut bread that will whisk you to Poilane in Paris; his pretty macarons rise with the fruit of the moment. One bite of his buttery croissants, and you’ll be glad he ditched the tech world for the dough scene.

Lovely’s Fifty Fifty: 4039 N. Mississippi Ave., 503-281-4060, lovelysfiftyfifty.wordpress.com; Portland’s three-branch Salt &Straw gets more attention, but superior scoops can be had at this ice cream and pizza parlor, where the flavors of the former run to fig leaf-vanilla and anise-hyssop. “I like steeping herbs,” says Sarah Minnick, one of two sisters who own the treasure.

Nuvrei Bakery: 404 NW 10th Ave., 503-972-1700, www.nuvrei.com, The almond croissant will spoil you for any other, and the flaky Danish, sweetened with berries that owner Marius Pop might have picked himself, may be the best you’ve ever had. A veteran of Payard Patisserie in New York, Pop presides over a display that includes a rainbow of macarons sold in the underground Mac Bar. Pop says “nu vrei” is Romanian for “Would you like some?” Of course you would.

Ristretto Roasters: Multiple locations, ristrettoroasters.com; Founder and owner Din Johnson personally sources the coffee for his pedigreed, medium-roast brews, which change with the season. Want to learn more about what you’re drinking? Ristretto’s sleek cafes host weekly cuppings for free.

Expatriate: 5424 NE 30th Ave., expatriatepdx.com, A moody, candlelit, classics-focused drinking den by husband-and-wife team Kyle Webster (the bar ace) and Naomi Pomeroy (chef-owner of Beast, across the street). The snacks — shrimp toast, Burmese tea leaf salad, Korean fried game hen — tilt Asian, with a nostalgic exception: Portland native James Beard’s crazy-simple onion-and-butter sandwich.

Pepe Le Moko: 407 SW 10th Ave., 503-546-8537, pepelemokopdx.com; In the tiny foyer: an oyster shucker. A flight of stairs down: a bunker of a bar, so dark you’re tempted to ask for a flashlight. On the menu: drinks that tend to get no respect – grasshoppers, espresso martinis – remade for modern tastes. Try the smooth amaretto sour with a brandied cherry. Alma: 140 NE 28th Ave., 503-517-0262, www.almachocolate.com; Sarah Hart got her start selling fanciful chocolate icons dressed in gold leaf at the big Portland Farmers Market. Eight years ago, she opened a shop, named for her grandmother, to show off the rest of her repertoire: bonbons whose fillings change with the season, Thai peanut bars and shots of melted dark chocolate. Coming this summer: a second location.

The Meadow: 3731 N. Mississippi Ave., 503-288-4633, 805 NW 23rd Ave., 503-305-3388, themeadow.com; Is it a boutique or a shrine? Whatever you call it, The Meadow beckons with 100 salts, 700 kinds of chocolate and bitters in flavors from anise to maple moonshine. Tequila shot glasses made with Himalayan salt will set you back $8 a pop.

Powell’s City of Books: 1005 W. Burnside St., 503-228-4651, Powell’s Books for Home and Garden, 3747 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-228-4651, www.powells.com: This beloved store’s flagship location counts more than 1 million books. The Orange Room houses overstocked cookbooks from around the world, vintage copies of “The Joy of Cooking” and “Larousse Gastronomique” and even “The Portlandia Cookbook.” The Hawthorne offshoot specializes in house and garden, cooking and entertaining.

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