Picking our favorite new dishes each year has a lot in common with ranking Portland’s best new restaurants, in that neither process is particularly scientific.
To come up with this list of five fantastic things we ate in the past 12 months, we scanned through our memory banks and a year’s worth of food photos, some blurrier than others. Then we filtered those results through our proprietary algorithm, essentially asking whether each dish had enough “moreishness” — in other words, how much did we want to eat it again?
Turns out, it was a year of eating well. In addition to the dishes highlighted here, we ate: our weight in panuchos, primarily from Ki’ikibáa, our just-announced Restaurant of the Year, though plenty came from nearby La Mestiza; too much great pizza, including standout newcomers Crust Collective, Hapa Pizza, Mucca Pizzeria, No Saint, Pan Con Queso and Reeva as well as two outstanding calzones from Apizza Scholls and Gracie’s Apizza; and some fantastic food cart fare, most notably scarfing chile relleno burgers from Paradise Hamburguesas and Korean fried chicken tossed in a blizzard’s worth of snow cheese from Frybaby.
This was also a year of wolfing down dumplings at Master Kong’s new Hawthorne location, forgetting to make reservations for sushi and fried scallop skewers at Kaede (and regretting it), longing for the next mezze plate packed with seasonal veggies from Tamara Hattar’s Euzumeh pop-up, drenching carne asada tacos in salsa verde at Adán Fausto’s Tacos Con Onda pop-up, chasing roast pork belly with outrageously good Halo-Halo and other sweet treats at Magna Kubo, warming our bodies with mohinga at Sandy’s Myanmar Cuisine and lining up for decadent hủ tiếu Nam Vang from the Lobo x Plasticities pop-up at Rangoon Bistro.
It also meant revisiting some old favorites. Grilled Jimmy Nardello peppers dipped in frothy sabayon at St. Jack. Wonton nachos and wagyu katsu sandos from Expatriate. Thai curry and beef fat rice from Langbaan’s Bangkok-inspired menu (it’s been too long!). Pasta and pavlova from Coquine (it’s been even longer!). Not to mention the endless summer pizza parties at the original Pizza Jerk.
But in that year of eating well, these five dishes — listed in alphabetical order by restaurant — stood out:
Chicharrones — deep fried pork belly bites with lime and Valentina hot sauce — from Astral, a pop-up turned residency at Northeast Portland's new Duality Brewing.Michael Russell | The Oregonian
Chicharones from Astral
Though they’ve since left the menu, these crunchy cubes of skin-on pork felt like a statement of purpose for this residency at nano brewery Duality. Puffy and rich, golden fried, more generous than other pork belly bites at newer restaurants around town and served simply with a lime wedge and a bottle of Valentina hot sauce, they didn’t have the seasonality of the snap pea esquites or the wonder of a scallop-pear crudo served from a tiny brewery kitchen. But they were delicious, and they did go great with beer.
Details: Astral serves dinner Friday-Saturday (with early afternoon service Saturday) and Sunday brunch at 715 N.E. Lawrence Ave., though the residency will be on hiatus in early January, and hours are subject to change; astralpdx.com
Further reading: It’s time we get on Astral’s wavelength (review)
Young yellowtail toast being made at Heavenly Creatures, a wine bar in Northeast Portland. November 27, 2023Beth Nakamura
Yellowtail toast from Heavenly Creatures
I ate at Heavenly Creatures four times in 2023, and this was the one dish I ordered every time. With its tender fish and smoky tonnato brightened with pickled onions and mustard seeds, it’s also the one dish that should never leave the menu. And it has a good backstory, too: Consulting chef Aaron Barnett (St. Jack) created the dish as a nod to the lox bagels that Heavenly Creatures owner Joel Gunderson used to bring him from Kornblatt’s when the duo worked near each other on Northwest 23rd Avenue.
Details: Heavenly Creatures is open for dinner Monday-Saturday (with a small plates menu available Friday-Saturday afternoons) at 2218 N.E. Broadway, heavenlycreaturespdx.com.
Bonus toasts: It was a good year for Portland wine bar toasts (no pun intended). Though we missed the summer tomato folks raved about at Xiao Ye, the white beans with a little too much Duke’s Mayo we found by chance one night at Central Eastside wine bar Grape Ape disappeared faster than we care to admit.
Further reading: Tasty food, celestial wine await at Northeast Portland’s Heavenly Creatures
Baked rigatoncini a la vodka with a dollop of burrata from No Saint, a Northeast Portland pizzeria.Michael Russell | The Oregonian
Rigatoncini a la vodka from No Saint
Pizza is the calling card at this Northeast Portland restaurant, but two of my favorite dishes — a lunch special mortadella sandwich with burrata, pistachio and spicy cabbage slaw and this shallow tray of pasta in a pleasantly light vodka sauce — weren’t pizza at all. Instead of taking a heavy hand with the cream, No Saint’s vodka sauce highlights the tomato and spice, replacing any missing richness with a big dollop of wobbly burrata just as the rigatoncini emerges from a quick bath in the wood-burning oven. As we wrote so eloquently in our recent review, “Yum.”
Details: No Saint is open for dinner Thursday-Sunday at 1603 N.E. Killingsworth St., 503-206-8321, nosaintpdx.com.
Further reading: Think Portland has too much good pizza? No Saint would like a word (review)
Grilled cabbage from Plumb
This was our first bite during our first visit to this nearly year-old residency at cocktail bar Deadshot, and it was a good one. With its grilled cabbage and diced apple in a textbook bechamel that had been blended with caramelized whey, it reminded me a bit of a similar dish from Dottir, the original restaurant at the nearby Icelandic hostel KEX, only better thanks to the tart apple’s bright pop. I visited a lot of interesting chef residencies this year — Astral, Le Plus Cool and Street Disco among them — but this dish, and its follow-up steak frites, made Plumb stand out.
Details: Plumb serves dinner Monday-Saturday inside Deadshot at 2133 S.E. 11th Ave., 503-875-0527, plumbrestaurantpdx.com.
Further reading: Plumb at Deadshot was the restaurant residency surprise of the year (review)
Chive cakes are served at Yaowarat, a restaurant inspired by Bangkok’s Chinatown, on Friday, December 8, 2023, in Portland’s Montavilla neighborhood.Vickie Connor/The Oregonian
Chive cakes from Yaowarat
Named for the main thoroughfare through Bangkok’s Chinatown, most of the menu of imported Chinese-Thai favorites at Earl Ninsom’s latest restaurant — the “road squid,” the dumplings, the stir fried noodles, the custard buns — fit the very definition of “moreishness.” But these chive cake cubes with their black vinegar dipper stood out not just because they’re delicious, but because they echo the chive cakes at Ninsom’s nostalgic Paadee, and because they taste like could play a role in a future Sunday dim sum menu here in the former Country Cat space. Or so we can dream...
Details: Yaowarat is open for dinner Wednesday-Sunday at 7937 S.E. Stark St., 971-420-8913, yaowaratpdx.com.
Further reading: Portland’s Yaowarat offers edible slideshow of dishes from Bangkok’s Chinatown
Best of 2023:
Portland’s best new food carts
Portland’s best new restaurants
— Michael Russell; mrussell@oregonian.com
"dish" - Google News
December 28, 2023
https://ift.tt/taoEXSW
Portland’s best new dishes of 2023 - OregonLive
"dish" - Google News
https://ift.tt/SE0qBub
No comments:
Post a Comment