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Brandon Weeks is a big fan of fried dough.
Before opening his brunch restaurant HunnyMilk in downtown Portland, he'd planned to open an ice cream and doughnut shop. He also had a pop-up, Outer Darkness Doughnuts, inside Southeast Clinton Street restaurant Jacqueline.
Related: New Brunch Spot HunnyMilk Will Make You Happy When Portland Skies Are Gray.
And now, in the wake of COVID-19, Weeks has effectively reverted back to a doughnut pop-up.
On April 26, Weeks reopened HunnyMilk's West Burnside location with a Sunday-only to-go menu of what you might call "composed doughnuts."
"It's kind of like doughnut-themed brunch dishes," says Weeks, who previously worked as a pastry chef at Renata and Urban Farmer, among other restaurants, "the theme being: Everything is fried."
Weeks' takeout concept isn't all that different from what you'd normally find at HunnyMilk. There's a prix fixe menu, with "sweet" and "savory" columns. But instead of biscuits and gravy or French toast with elaborate accompaniments on cast-iron skillets, you get "cheesy herb biscuit holes," or a Monte Cristo "fritter" with elaborate accompaniments, self-contained in to-go boxes.
And instead of charging $23 per person for two dishes and a beverage, it's $20 for two doughnuts and two coffees, period.
The food is made to order for five customers every 15 minutes—HunnyMilk's two-room space, in the former Bitter End Pub, has room enough to properly distance—and has sold out in advance the past two Sundays.
The menu items are as over the top as you'd expect from someone who's also done a "wake-and-bake" brunch. The sweet options include a brioche donut stuffed with both blueberry yogurt and Key lime curd, and a Saigon cinnamon churro with whiskey apples. The savory portion of the menu includes biscuits with chorizo gravy, Mama Lil's peppers and a spicy maple drizzle, a popcorn chicken-and-waffle dish, and huevos rancheros using the restaurant's hush puppy batter in place of corn tortillas.
In a perfect world, Weeks would like to turn the concept into a second brick-and-mortar restaurant—a kind of doughnut tapas bar, with cocktails and evening hours.
"This is kind of like a dry run for that," he says. "Beta-testing the food and just putting it all together and seeing how it all looks and tastes."
But given the current state of the world, where to-go items and socially distanced dining may still be a restaurant's only option for the next few months, this might also be HunnyMilk's permanent menu, at least for the time being, as well as the thing that finally gets Weeks to partner with one or more of the delivery apps.
Here's how one of HunnyMilk's doughnuts, the Monte Cristo-Nut, breaks down.
ORDER: HunnyMilk is open for takeout orders 9 am-1 pm Sundays at 1981 W Burnside St. $20 for two doughnut dishes and two coffees to go. Visit instagram.com/hunnymilkpdx for menu and ordering information, or email brandon@hunnymilk.com.