Keep it Poppin'

Pop-ups just keep popping up. With rare exception, each is an impecunious young chef's road test for grander ambitions that may or may not pan out. The irregular hours and changeable locations can be a pain, but Portland's pop-ups, more so now than food carts, are the crucible from which tomorrow's restaurant rock stars are forged. Here are a few of our newer favorites. MICHAEL C. ZUSMAN.

Nomad.PDX 

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

Forgive me if I think of Nomad, the love child of co-chefs Ryan Fox and Ali Matteis, as Holdfast: Next Generation, but that's a compliment. It followed that much-lauded project into and away from the KitchenCru commissary space and offers a strikingly similar, if slightly less evolved, focus. Nomad has drifted to the small but comfortable mezzanine above new downtown 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. MICHAEL C. ZUSMAN.

Hatos Bar Barbecue 

One-off at White Owl Social Club.

Tokyo's Hatos Bar is known for an impossible thing: perfect, American-style barbecue made in Japan. And somehow White Owl Social Club managed to bring in Hatos chef Sou "Blunt" Leki for a four-night stand on its epic patio. Just $18 netted a massive plate featuring half the pig: beautiful dry-rubbed St. Louis-cut spare ribs, pork butt that melted into heaven, a dainty square of just-so pork belly, and a big ol' pile of pulled pork on Wonder Bread. Oh, and then there was that hunk of beef brisket with its gorgeous spiced husk of char. Oh, and Ndamukong Suh apparently showed up. For four days in July, it was the best barbecue in Portland. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

Mae 

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

The confirmation email arrived a few days before the dinner and ended with the prophetic words, "Come hungry." Fair warning. Maya Lovelace is a Southern girl who is clearly in command of the dining space around back from Old Salt Marketplace that she named in honor of her grandmother. Lovelace definitely likes to serve the dishes she grew up on, with a Willamette Valley tweak. On arrival one July night, 20 or so diners packed in densely to be served family-style. The chalkboard menu began with sassafras sweet tea and ended with Sundrop pound cake, served with whipped lemon verbena-infused buttermilk and local blackberries. The whirl of nine or so courses reached a crescendo with crunchy fried chicken accompanied by bottles of Crystal hot sauce, though the yeast-risen angel biscuits topped with Duke's mayo and a tomato slice were heavenly indeed. MICHAEL C. ZUSMAN.

PlaceInvaders 

Travels city to city. Check placeinvaders.co for updates on future events.

Portland native Katie Smith-Adair and cook/coder Hagan Blount drive from city to city with a little trailer, setting up meals in other people's houses while they're not there. The owners are forbidden from attending dinners. They set up booze sponsorships on the fly, and figure out food sourcing the same way. At a recent edition in Laurelhurst, we sucked down seemingly limitless wine and bright cocktails, with Sriracha-broiled local oysters, dumplings with duck from a farm near Eugene, and salmon caught in the wild by Smith-Adair's cousin. It is less fine dining than the upscale home cooking of the food obsessive—while the salmon was beautifully tender in beurre blanc, the pequin-pepper panna cotta was a bit awkward—but much of the fun was walking around drunk with strangers and peering into the lives of others. We were encouraged to wander free in the apartment. "Look at these fixtures," said Blount, upstairs after dinner. "Brass. This hasn't been updated since the '80s."
MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

South Broke Da Mouth 

A one-off at Le Pigeon during the restaurant's summer vacation.

Hawaiian fare ain't fancy. There's lots of Spam, mayonnaise, rice and coleslaw. Southern picnic foods are an obvious affinity group. And, thus, South Broke Da Mouth, a one-off mash-up from Le Pigeon pastry chef Jaclyn Nakashima and Little Bird sous chef Andrew Gordon. It was a simple menu: house-baked Hawaiian buns were topped with pulled pork in a sticky sweet 'cue sauce and sweet-tea-brined, batter-fried chicken thighs. The chicken was tops. The sides—mac salad and macaroni and cheese—weren't anything exciting, but the cocktails were killer, especially the Hawaiian Punch with Okolehao (Hawaiian moonshine), rum, brandy, bitters and pineapple.
MARTIN CIZMAR.

Kotori 

Southeast 9th Avenue and Pine Street, 239-8830, biwarestaurant.com. 4 pm-sunset Thursday-Sunday.

Kotori ("little chicken") is just a grill and two guys under a Japanese awning outside Biwa izakaya. They make salt-kissed chicken parts, skewered and grilled over Japanese binchotan charcoal. When drippings hit the embers, they're incinerated into pure flavor that wafts up to coat the meat. Yakitori, they say, is not so much a meal as a ritualized snack, meant to be enjoyed with friends on the way home from work. Stand at the thin rail of a bar and share a full liter of Asahi Super Dry for $8. Fair warning: The chicken usually disappears before sunset. ENID SPITZ.

Thali Supper Club

Din Din Supper Club, 920 NE Glisan St., 754-6456, thalisupperclub.com. Next meal Aug. 15.

Assam-born Leena Ezekiel's monthly supper club hops from region to region in India. The dinner's name, "Thali," refers to the big plate on which Ezekiel places an array of metal bowls filled with flavor. Most recently, the food came from the Maharashtra region—home to Mumbai. There was more flavor per inch than at any meal in town, from an 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 and the pungent onion-garlic herbal notes of asafetida. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

WWeek 2015