Scoop: Food News, Sedaris and a Big Fat Correction

1. PIGGIE AND MARKET: Eric Bechard, the chef of McMinnville’s Thistle who was famously arrested for brawling over the birthplace of a pig used in a chef competition in 2010, is opening a restaurant in Southeast Portland. A sample menu includes pickled elk tongue, stinging nettle and wild garlic soup, and birch syrup pie with soured milk. The restaurant is so far unnamed, but Scoop thinks “Tussle” has a really nice ring to it. >> It looks like Portland’s got yet another brightly lit burger-bar outpost that has its name emblazoned in stark white across blazing red walls. Except this time, it’s called Slow Burger (2319 NE Glisan St.). The Slow Bar spinoff has finally started serving the bar’s popular loaded-to-the-gills burgers in Kevin Cavanaugh’s high-concept food court, The Ocean. >> In other food news, downtown’s Market has closed, the second straight flop for formerly invincible local restaurateur Kurt Huffman. >> Rae’s Lakeview Lounge is slated to open on Black Friday at 1900 NW 27th Ave., in the space that formerly housed Aki Pan Asian Cuisine. It’s billed as “a classic, metropolitan lounge grounded in old-Portland roots, both food and cocktails are scratch made, affordable, and approachable.”

1. PORTLAND MAKE FILM TODAY: Before David Sedaris was Crumpet the Elf, he came to the Beaver State to pick apples. And true to his tendency for misadventure, he ended up hanging out with a fanatical Christian and selling stones carved in the shape of Oregon. Sedaris captured that experience in the essay “C.O.G.”—which is now being made into a feature film and, according to our favorite gadfly, Byron Beck, currently shooting in Portland. Start prowling for those mid-tier celebs, including Glee’s Jonathan Groff (spotted at the Pearl District’s 24 Hour Fitness), True Blood’s Denis O’Hare and Battlestar Galactica’s Dean Stockwell.

1. SIGN UP: The Hollywood Theatre wants your money to put up a new marquee. The historic arthouse has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to replace its current, 30-year-old signboard. The theater has already raised more than $50,000 in donations and in-kind support, but it still needs $55,000 by Dec. 18 for the new marquee, which will be designed in the style of the 1926 original. Executive director Doug Whyte also hopes a fancy and flashy marquee—the Kickstarter video promises lots of neon and hundreds of bulbs—will help the Hollywood thumb its nose at the five-story housing complex being constructed next door.

1. CORRECTION: Last week’s review of rival Southeast Portland sandwich carts (“Shut Up, Lardo,” Oct. 31, 2012) incorrectly identified the kind of fat Lardo uses to cook its fries. It uses a mixture of canola oil and high-grade rendered pork fat. We regret the error.

WWeek 2015