Double Dragon

1235 SE Division St., 230-8340, doubledragonpdx.com. Lunch and dinner Tuesday-Sunday.

Unobtrusively hip nighttime hang Double Dragon, one of very few decent bars on Division, despite being a restaurant, started as a $9 fancy pork belly and slow-cooked pulled-pork banh mi shop. It still serves them, and they're still pretty dang good, as is the $10 Szechuan burger and beer pint deal at happy hour. But the unbridled masterpiece on the menu, as it turns out, is the kimchi Kobe beef hot dog ($7). The toppings are maybe unimprovable—a festooned drum-line parade of texture and flavor—with a beautiful point-counterpoint of fat and acid from light aioli and kimchi, brightened by cucumber and the herbal lilt of cilantro erupting from a bun so toasted it has the texture of garlic bread. And yet, none of it feels like excess. It feels instead like poise—a fat Russian circus bear pirouetting gracefully atop a balance beam.

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