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The Flying Fish oyster counter inside Northeast Sandy Boulevard's Providore Fine Foods throws together so many New Portland food obsessions you can't keep them straight.
Direct farm sourcing and relationships with the oyster farmers? Check. Self-serve bone broth? A roasted whole chicken out of a side window? Double check. Is the original cart-turned-shack location being pushed out by mixed-use apartment developers? Yes, it is. Is it now inside an boutique grocery with beer taps? Does it sport one of the city's best selections of vermouth? Are chocolate bars $15? Can you pull a Bonal and soda from the wine racks and take the rest of the bottle home? Yup.
Olympia Oyster Bar, Jacqueline, Rue and Little Bird all have great bivalve happy hours. But there's nowhere I trust more than this little counter in the back of Providore. Nobody's closer to the farmers, and no place goes so far out of its way to find local varietals that even a dedicated oyster junkie hasn't seen in Portland before.
Here at Flying Fish, I have had sea cows and blue pools and torques so impossibly large and sumptuous they're less aphrodisiac than the feeling of love itself, a genuine reason to look forward to winter. It's the only true luxury I allow myself with such regularity, and with so few regrets.
GO: Flying Fish at Providore Fine Foods, 2340 NE Sandy Blvd., 971-806-6747, flyingfishoysterbar.com. Noon-8 pm daily. 50 cents off oysters during happy hour, 3-5 pm Monday-Friday.
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