Some of Bing Mi Noodle and Dumpling's most promising dishes include the appetizers, such as the cold sliced duck.Michael Russell | The Oregonian
Winter often brings restaurant closures, as struggling businesses face the prospect of dead dining rooms extending through Valentine’s Day. That was doubly so this January, with soaring COVID-19 cases making indoor dining a dodgy proposition. Last month, three important Portland restaurants — Acadia, Bistro Agnes and Clyde Common — became the latest to announce permanent closures. The past two years treated each differently (Bistro Agnes, the downtown French restaurant from the chefs at Northeast Portland’s Ox, never even reopened after March 2020), but the pandemic was the root cause of all three closures. And yet, new ventures continue to fill the empty storefronts left behind by once-beloved restaurants. Here are 10 pieces of restaurant news to keep your culinary curiosity piqued (while we wait for omicron to recede).
Bing Mi, the food cart credited with introducing Portlanders to the cracker-filled Chinese crepes called jian bing, has a new brick-and-mortar cafe in Northwest Portland, its first standalone restaurant. Bing Mi Dumpling and Noodle Bar at 2572 N.W. Vaughn St. doesn’t actually serve jian bing, focusing instead on other dishes popular in owner Jackie Ren’s hometown of Shandong, China, including typically thick-skinned (if not particularly juicy) pork and cabbage dumplings and a spartan take on zhazhiangmian, the “black bean noodles” (actually soy) with squeaky cubes of pork belly you might have tried at Frank’s Noodle House, Noodle Man, Stretch The Noodle, Du Kuh Bee (R.I.P.) or a half dozen other Portland restaurants. The best bites in the early going — the restaurant held its grand opening at the start of the Lunar New Year, but has been quietly open for weeks — are the unlisted appetizers, including a pair of spot-on pickles, tender five-spice braised pork and thin-sliced roast duck served cold with oyster sauce.
Chicken souvlaki at Bluto’s, a Greek inspired restaurant at 2838 S.E. Belmont St.Mark Graves/The Oregonian
Rick Gencarelli is excited to be back in a small kitchen again after spending a decade building up his two popular chains, Lardo and Grassa. At the Greek-inspired Bluto’s, 2838 S.E. Belmont St., Gencarelli and executive chef Barry Fitzpatrick focus on souvlaki, cooking spiced lamb and oregano chicken skewers over an open hearth, complete with house-made flatbread. They’re also trying to keep things as lively as the restaurant’s namesake character, “Animal House’s” John “Bluto” Blutarsky. There are sides of “ranchziki” (a ranch-tzatziki mashup), ouzo mojitos and a soft-serve machine dispensing vanilla and chocolate frozen yogurt with tahini magic shell. And Gencarelli is already teasing upcoming additions to the menu, including lamb spare ribs with a pomegranate barbecue sauce glaze.
After initially taking a crack at a space in Lents, Bar Mingo bartender Samantha Castle and chef Todd Brown have opened their long-awaited brunch spot Flattop & Salamander in a space near Nostrana at 1401 S.E. Morrison St., previously home to a handful of restaurants from chef BJ Smith, Eater PDX reports. Named for a pair of kitchen appliances essential for any brunch spot (a grill and broiler), Flattop & Salamander’s menu includes chicken and waffles with hot chile honey or maple-bacon butter, corned beef hash with poblano peppers and biscuits in gravy and frizzled onions. Jams are housemade, as is the tomatillo Bloody Mary mix used in the Verde Mary.
An order of a Full Dozen oysters at Flying Fish Co., a restaurant, fish market and oyster bar on East Burnside St. in Portland.The Oregonian
More oysters are generally a good thing. In a move reminiscent of Sugarpine Drive-in’s shape-shifting food truck or Lardo’s old pop-up cart, Flying Fish’s new Chef Shack opened on the restaurant’s parking lot last month with plans to feature a different chef each month or so, starting with the restaurant’s own Trever Gilbert. At the Chef Shack, Gilbert, who previously worked at Departure and RingSide Fish House, is serving a menu of escolar ceviche, grilled oysters, butternut squash soup and more from 1 to 8 p.m., Friday-Sunday at 3004 E. Burnside St. (plus a special Monday service on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14). Flying Fish’s own restaurant and market remain open for normal hours. Next up, former Bullard chef Doug Adams takes over the truck on Feb. 19, followed by Olympia Oyster Bar’s Maylin Chavez on March 5. Bet you can’t try just one.
Northeast Portland has a new pasta row. Gabbiano’s, a new Italian American restaurant from David Sigal (Mian), Blake Foster (Zoo Bar) and Daniel Pickens-Jones (Meta Pizza), is serving fried calamari, chicken Parm and a handful of pastas in the former Yakuza space, 5411 N.E. 30th Ave., according to reports from Bridgetown Bites and Eater PDX. Gabbiano’s chef is Daniel Rehbein, previously found in the kitchen at farm-direct butcher shop Piccone’s Corner. Here, Rehbein is making crispy breaded mozzarella cups, chitarra pasta and meatballs and panna cotta for dessert, Wednesday to Sunday. The wine is Italian, while cocktails include a sparkling sbagliato-style negroni and a lemon drop made with house saffron limoncello. Hungry for a pasta crawl? Bring your walking shoes and a bib. Gabbiano’s sits next to Ripe Cooperative and resident Dame pop-up Estes, each with its own pasta options.
St. Johns will soon be home to Rockabilly, a 1950s-inspired diner with buttermilk pancakes, waffles, steak and eggs, tuna melts, smash burgers, BLTs and plenty of milkshakes, Bridgetown Bites was first to report. The restaurant, previously called Greasers, is aiming to open by the end of the month in the old Chop space, 8537 N. Lombard St. Expect to find a vintage cash register and jukebox, old-fashioned steering wheels mounted at each booth and milkshakes blended in a Multimixer, the same machine associated with early McDonald’s CEO Ray Kroc. At dinner, the restaurant will turn to meatloaf, fried chicken, chicken-fried steaks and other diner comfort food classics. It could prove a welcome addition to the deep North Portland neighborhood for those of us who still miss Pattie’s Home Plate Cafe: the classic diner closed after a 21-year-run in 2019.
This restaurant-market hybrid debuted in December in the Northwest Portland space formerly home to Vietnamese street food spot Hẻm 23, 1514 N.W. 23rd Ave. According to a news release, Rotigo offers sandwiches, salads, vegan sides and rotisserie chicken plus a “carefully curated mercantile and a European-leaning retail wine shop and bar.” Founder Cate Hughes (Prima Palate, Tiburon) focuses on sustainability, from the compostable-only takeout packaging to a staff wellness fund. From Tuesday to Saturday, customers can scan the market for olives, pastas, honey, chocolates, tinned fish and other items uniformly free of artificial colors, flavors and preservatives.
New Takibi chef Cody Auger began consulting at the Northwest Portland restaurant last summer.Courtesy of Takibi
Usually, a chef change at a new restaurant could be a troubling sign. But in the case of Takibi, the “bonfire-inspired” Japanese restaurant found inside the headquarters of outdoor gear specialist Snow Peak’s North American headquarters, 2275 N.W. Flanders St., it feels like the missing piece. Cody Auger, co-owner of superlative Southeast Portland sushi spot Nimblefish, has taken over the menu at Takibi, hoping to turn the elegant restaurant — already known for its impressive drinks program from bar director Jim Meehan and bar manager Lydia McLuen — into a premier Portland izakaya, with Oregon seafood and other ingredients pulled directly from the open kitchen’s flaming hearth. Auger continues to co-own Nimblefish, though the now omakase-only restaurant has gone in a more formal direction under chef Yasu Tabita. According to Snow Peak, Submarine Hospitality, which opened the restaurant last May, is no longer involved with Takibi. If you’ve been waiting to check out Takibi, now is the time.
Top Burmese, a growing chain of restaurants focused on the cuisine of Myanmar, is opening a fourth location, this time in downtown Hillsboro. Though the menu has yet to be finalized, the upcoming Top Burmese Ambassador location will be a “fondue and grill” with “unique offerings” at 180 E Main St. in the downtown space last home to Virundhu South Indian Cuisine. Starting in March, owners Kalvin and Poe Myint plan to experiment with a new fondue-style menu built off of the restaurant’s paratha dip, a tray of air-fried puffs of paratha flatbread served with coconut curry for dipping, here joined by fresh vegetables and rice, the signature fish stew mohinga, and even a spicy melted cheese. “It’s not traditional, it’s on the fusion side, but we’ll put some creativity into it,” Kalvin Myint said. In December, Top Burmese was named one of Portland’s best new restaurants for making a long-awaited cuisine more accessible in the metro area.
Abbey Road Farm chef Will Preisch is rolling out a new chef collaboration dinner series, starting with his former Holdfast Dining partner Joel Stocks on Feb. 20. It’s the public’s first chance to try the duo’s food together since Holdfast closed at the start of the pandemic. Stocks has been busy with Jem Supper Club (most recently spotted at our 2021 Restaurant of the Year, Magna Kusina), while Preisch has been shepherding Abbey Road’s bed and breakfast as well as his six-course Verdant lunch series. Expect at least nine courses and a chance to try some of Preisch’s farm-driven fermentations, including vinegar made from estate wine, housemade misos and black shallots growing in the garden. Future collaborations include two-time James Beard Award winning chef Gabriel Rucker (Le Pigeon, Canard), followed by Antica Terra chef Timothy Wastell. Hosted at the winery, 10280 N.E. Oak Springs Farm Road in Carlton, tickets for the first dinner are $250 and will be available Friday afternoon on the Brown Paper Tickets website.
As you might have seen in our Brews and News Newsletter, Pranom, a traveling Thai pop-up from chef Dream Kasestatad, lands in Portland this week with a series of events at local breweries. After serving boat noodles at Threshold Brewing on Wednesday, Kasestatad, moves to Ruse Brewing, 4784 S.E. 17th Ave., on Thursday and Friday (Feb. 3 and 4) followed by Great Notion’s Beaverton taproom, 230 N.W. Lost Springs Terr. #10, on Saturday (Feb. 5). The Ruse events begin at 5 p.m., with live music starting at 7 p.m. Meanwhile, DesiPDX cart owner Deepak Saxena has opened his new sandwich kitchen, Chaat Wallah, in a space next door to Ruse Brewing shared with canned cocktail company 503 Distilling. Swing by after the Pranom event to try a masala pulled pork sandwich on a toasted Dos Hermanos bun with one of 503 Distilling’s Wicked Mules, a Moscow mule with vodka, ginger beer and lime.
— Michael Russell, mrussell@oregonian.com, @tdmrussell
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