Food+Drink

Buoy Beer Company’s fifth vintage of Love, Lost at Sea barleywine is aged in Freeland Spirits bourbon barrels.

Keep Spring Beers Weird

written by Beau Eastes Having lived in the Pacific Northwest for more than 20 years, I’ve come to love and appreciate the craft beer calendar so many of our amazing breweries operate on. Summer brings out IPAs and all their goodness, fall is time for fresh hop experimentation, and winter is usually one glorious high ABV haze. But the spring, oh the spring is when things get wild and anything goes. It’s the seasonal equivalent of international waters or Malheur County. Here’s what we’re drinking while we’re embracing the shoulder season behind March and April. ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING FROM HAIR OF THE DOG: In February, craft beer pioneer Alan Sprints announced he’s shutting down Hair of the Dog, the iconic eastside Portland brewery he founded in 1993. Your favorite barrel-aged beer most likely owes a debt of gratitude to Sprints, who popularized the Old World beer-making technique at a time…

Wild Thing PDX serves up vegan-forward, plant-inspired bowls.

Wild Thing PDX

written by Kerry Newberry Like so many other diners with good intentions, you pledged to eat more vegetables this year. That’s easier to do with the recent addition of Wild Thing PDX to Portland’s Alberta Arts District. The first thing you need to know about this vegan-forward, plant-inspired bowl restaurant is that chef Sam Smith of Sweedeedee (and formerly Tusk) designed the core menu. “He’s such a wizard with vegetables,” said Kelsey Glasser, owner of wine bar Arden and the developer behind Wild Thing PDX. “Chefs can do amazing things with vegetables, but Sam really gives them the star treatment,” she added. Another talent currently leading the kitchen is Dominique Rodriguez, who worked at vegan hot spot Tiny Moreso and co-founded the vegetarian pop-up, Raiz. The signature bowls pop with satisfying flavors from The Wild One that layers ginger beets, urfa chili sweet potato, lemony brussel sprouts, crispy sumac cabbage…

Sibeiho’s Holly Ong and Pat Lau.

Sibeiho: Spice of Life

written by Kerry Newberry A few years ago, Holly Ong and Pat Lau cooked up one of their favorite childhood dishes: Singapore Chili Crab. But instead of traditional mud crabs for the signature seafood dish, they used freshly caught Oregon Dungeness crabs from Kelly’s Brighton Marina. “We are always looking to add flavors that remind us of our home using local ingredients,” said Ong. The sweetness of the crab played off their homemade spicy, tangy umami sauce in a way that delighted them both. “We thought maybe other people will want to try this too,” said Ong. In 2019, the longtime friends who met while working for Nike Singapore, began hosting private supper clubs. “It was a way to share family dishes from Singapore that we missed the most,” said Ong. Enter Covid in 2020, and the entrepreneurs shifted their focus from pop-up dinners to launching a food startup, beginning…

At Fish Sauce, send your palate on a trip with, clockwise from top left, chuối chiên; pork bánh mì; bún vermicelli; gỏi cuốn; Botta’s Favorite with grilled shrimp, fried egg, jasmine rice and núớc mắm; and the Fortune & Glory cocktail with rum, mint, hibiscus and lime.

The Global Flavors of Portland

In America’s darling of the dining scene, the world lands on your fork written by Julie Lee When the culinary scene in Portland amped up in the early 2000s, the keystone to international recognition was flavorful dishes that chefs created which were ingenious to anywhere but the Northwest. The secret to the recipe, though, was the collective passion to source local ingredients. Of the more renowned chefs, Andy Ricker became internationally famous for what he could do with a chicken wing. Pok Pok was one of the first of many foodie favorites that started as a food truck, garnered international acclaim, and put Portland front and center on the gastronomic map for occasional diners and food snobs alike. In the pandemic’s wake, the restaurant industry has suffered dearly, with decades of hard work and fame wiped out. While Portland lost some renowned chefs including Ricker, many food carts, restaurants and…

Von Ebert Brewing’s Pearl District pub is a perfect spot for sampling its award-guzzling brews such as Volatile Substance IPA.

Pour It On

The new year is brewing with excitement written by Beau Eastes Hello 2022, we couldn’t be more excited to see you. After a year in which we saw iconic institutions like Portland Brewing and Bailey’s Taphouse close, as well as the cancellation of most of the state’s annual beer festivals, we’re looking forward to the new year like a bearded man in flannel loves a super danky double IPA. Here’s what we’re giddy about as we roll into 2022: VON EBERT’S ENCORE Arguably no craft brewer in Oregon had a better 2021 than Portland-based Von Ebert Brewing. Less than four years old, Von Ebert was named the 2021 Medium Sized Brewery of the Year by the Oregon Beer Awards, claimed gold in the uber-competitive American IPA category at the 2021 Great American Beer Festival with their Volatile Substance IPA, all the while expanding their popular Heritage Beer Series. It’s a…

Aesthete teas sprung from a family tradition of leveraging its folk healing properties.

Aesthete Tea

written by Lauren Sharp The product of a mother daughter partnership, Aesthete is a brand defined by the appreciation of art, nature and beauty with the goal of bringing people together through carefully crafted herbal teas. Owner Briana Thornton and their mother, herbalist Maggie Cassidy, have formed a collaboration that keeps the traditions of folk healing alive in southwest Portland and beyond. The inspiration for Aesthete, a loose-leaf tea purveyor and teahouse, is deep in Thorton’s roots. Growing up, their mother Maggie was constantly mixing her own herbal teas as part of her own studies in herbalism and natural healing. Thorton gained a new appreciation for her mother’s teas while working at a faced-paced advertising agency. Their mother often sent care packages with custom blends offering a range of physical and mental health benefits. Thornton’s friends and colleagues quickly noticed her unusual, aromatic teas and urged them to go into…

Put your palate in Chef Joel Lui-Kwan’s command at Lovely Rita with the “off menu” prix-fixe dinner, the chef’s selection of starters, main dishes and dessert.

Lovely Rita

written by Lauren Sharp Teeming with ’60s glam—bronze fixtures, velvet chairs, walnut dining tables— this spot at The Hoxton hotel is the place for an evening cocktail and small plates or prix-fixe dining. Adjacent to Portland’s Old Town Chinatown, it was scheduled to open in early 2020, Lovely Rita opened October 15. Just like the lovely meter maid of the song invoked by its name, the space will be devoted to work (and lounging) during the day, transforming into a sultry dining destination for dinner. Of course, the hyper-local rotating beer, spirits and wine menu will be available throughout the day. Chef Joel Lui-Kwan took the creative lead on the Pacific Northwest concept, overseeing the food throughout the hotel, which besides Lovely Rita, includes the breakfast and lunch cafe Little Rita and the rooftop bar, Tope. Lui-Kwan’s menu embraces smoked fish, oysters, pan-roasted meats, seasonal vegetables and artisan charcuterie sourced…

Pink Rabbit restaurant

Pink Rabbit

written by Lauren Sharp Take a trip down the rabbit hole in Portland’s Pearl District at Pink Rabbit cocktail lounge. Pull a seat up at the neon-lit bar in the revamped space with its pop-art mural paying homage to its namesake bunny for hopped-up cocktails served until midnight most weekdays and 2 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays. At the helm is industry veteran Collin Nicholas who cut his teeth on mixology in late-night leaders New York City and the Bay Area, and is a two-time finalist of Bombay Sapphire’s “Most Imaginative Bartender Award.” He grew up immersed in the strong cocktail of cultures of the East Bay and Berkeley, which he’s been bringing to bar programs across Portland as the bar director of Submarine Hospitality Group (Tusk, Takibi, Ava Gene’s). Pink Rabbit is his first solo leap. “I’m excited to incorporate all the influences from past projects into the cocktails I’ve…

Pelican’s Father of All Tsunamis Imperial Stout is a tidal wave of flavor, aged in rye whiskey barrels.

Oregon Winter: Made for Brews

Barrel-agedier, boozier and sniftier, for Nordic hut-ing, hot tubbing or Blazer-fanning written by Beau Eastes There’s a lot to love about Oregon winters. The holiday lights at Peacock Lane, skiing the bowl at Mt. Bachelor, irrational Blazer championship hopes. But the best part of the colder months here in the Beaver State is the unofficial fancy beer season. In November and December, the beers in Oregon get bigger, funkier and more barrel-agedier. It’s fantastic. Here’s what we’ll be drinking this winter at Beerlandia while we try to convince ourselves that Dame and C.J. can actually be the cornerstones of a competent defense. (Hint: it’ll have to be something stronger than Deschutes’ excellent-but-light Rip City Lager.) Ecliptic Brewing’s Filament Winter IPA with Tangerine: If Oregon craft beer legend and Ecliptic founder John Harris wants to play around with his traditional winter beer and add tangerine, it’s best to just say thank…