Where to Get Food in Portland This Week

Hot Plates, coming through!

By WW Staff

1. Rock Paper Fish

2605 SE Burnside St., rockpaperfishandchips.com. 11 am-9 pm Wednesday-Sunday.

Rock Paper Fish is yet another fast-casual Micah Camden restaurant, and yet another quick pandemic pivot. Open since mid-August, it's a pickup- and delivery-only fish-and-chips window, operating out of what used to be Boxer Ramen in the Burnside 26 building. The seafood may be mostly local or regional, but the style is New England: double-battered, double-fried, with thick fries reminiscent of Belgian frites.

Read more: Micah Camden Goes Fishing With Ndamukong Suh and a Portland Dining Veteran.

The pate en croute at La Moule. IMAGE: Aaron Barnett.

2. La Moule

2500 SE Clinton St., 971-339-2822, lamoulepdx.com. 4-9 pm Wednesday-Sunday.

Going from Paris to Portland may seem an odd career move for a chef. But for John Denison, it made perfect sense. Having started his career at St. Jack before bouncing around some of Europe's finest kitchens, he's back at Aaron Barnett's other French-inspired restaurant, moving the menu in an even more Gallic direction. Denison's tour de force? An ultra-rustic pâté en croûte.

Read more: Chef John Denison Has Worked in High-Profile Restaurants Across Europe. The Pandemic Brought Him Back to Portland and Into the Kitchen at La Moule.

3. Dimo’s Apizza

701 E Burnside St., 503-327-8968, dimosapizza.com. 4-9 pm Wednesday-Sunday.

The menu at Dimo's Apizza is loaded with variations of the New Haven-style pies chef Doug Miriello grew up eating in Connecticut. But his new spot aims for a place in Portland's sandwich pantheon, too. The most recent addition to the menu is maybe the most impressive. It's called The Beast: whole top sirloin seasoned like brisket, cave-aged Gruyère and slathered-on aioli.

Read more: Sure, Pizza Is on the Marquee, but Dimo's Apizza Is Aiming for Portland's Sandwich Pantheon, Too.

IMAGE: Christine Dong.

4. Galactic Grapes

5800 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 213-246-7993, instagram.com/galacticgrapespdx.

One of the only places in the country where you can purchase a candy-encrusted grape is out of a splatter-painted food truck in Northeast Portland. Co-owners Vicky Carmichael and Andre Montgomery call the titular product "the fruit of the future," but the individual elements are straight out of the '80s: smashed Lemonheads, Fun Dip powder and Pop Rocks act as seasoning, and biting into any of them quenches like chugging a sports drink—crisp, juicy, electrolyte-forward.

Read more: Galactic Grapes Is Portland's New Candy Crush.

NO REVISIONS: The smash double cheeseburger at Rough Draft. IMAGE: Trevor Gagnier.

5. Rough Draft Burger Shop

Inside Uptown Beer Co. at 6620 SW Scholls Ferry Road, rdburgershop.com. 4-9 pm Wednesday-Thursday, noon-9 pm Friday-Saturday.

Rough Draft's idea of the perfect burger is fatty, simple and crispy-smashed—just meat, cheese and condiments. The dark horse menu item, though? Vegetables. Fried broccoli with hot cheese, pickled peppers, scallion and crispy jalapeños does not feel virtuous at all, but it delivers cruciferous vitamins and fiber.

Read more: Seattle's Rough Draft Pops Up in the Burger Desert of Southwest Portland.

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