Top of the Pops

Nomad.PDX

1200 SW Morrison St., 459-1986, nomadpdx.com. Dinner seatings Thursday-Sunday. $95.

Nomad, the love child of chefs Ryan Fox and Ali Matteis, is a little like Holdfast: Next Generation. This is a compliment. Held in the mezzanine of new West End bar Shift Drinks, a typical Nomad meal will include 15 to 20 bite-sized courses, with an emphasis on local ingredients, strong technique and gorgeous presentations. Dishes can be as out there as "cucumber, trout roe, buttermilk, nasturtium" served on a footlong piece of slate, or as homey as a tiny loaf of white bread with a canelé of blackberry butter.

Mae

5027 NE 42nd Ave., maepdx.com. Approximately every other Tuesday. $60 "suggested donation" (cash only). BYOB.

Maya Lovelace is a Southern girl clearly in command of the dining space around back from Old Salt Marketplace she named in honor of her grandmother. A menu might begin with sassafras sweet tea, end with Sun Drop pound cake, and travel through crunchy fried chicken accompanied by bottles of Crystal hot sauce and angel biscuits topped with Duke's mayo and a tomato slice.

Thali Supper Club

Din Din Supper Club, 920 NE Glisan St., 754-6456, thalisupperclub.com.

Approximately once monthly. $70. BYOB.

Assam-born Leena Ezekiel's monthly supper club hops from region to region in India, with huge platters—thali—filled with a rainbow of dishes that offer more flavor per inch than at any meal in town, from a recent earthy fish-tamarind dish of pigeon peas sweetened with jaggery, to a mustardy goat dish, to especially a bharli vangi dish that bathed fish in coconut.

Doi DuA

6 SE 28th Ave (inside PaaDee), 352-239-1586, doidua-popup.com. 5:30-10 pm Mondays. $50.

Mondays only in the back room of PaaDee, Doi Dua is Portland's best and most ambitious Vietnamese restaurant ever, a prix fixe meal with an awe-inspiring diversity and balance of flavors, textures and colors. Chef Sarah Bui turns twists on her Southern Vietnamese heritage with a lotus salad that's a sensory starburst, salad rolls that feature baby anchovy, or a faux pho made with pearl onions, oxtail and nasturtium.

Willamette Week