10 Meals We’re Still Thinking About From 2021.

We ate a lot of great things this year—some recently, some way back at the beginning of 2021. Now, as the year comes to a close, these are the bites we’re still thinking about.

1. Baon Kainan

4311 NE Prescott St., baonkainan.com. 4-7 pm Thursday-Monday, 11 am-2 pm Saturday-Sunday.

The biggest standout dish at this hot new Filipino food cart located in the Metalwood Salvage lot is its kare kare fries. The classic braised beef peanut stew is thickened and poured over fries, aided by a dollop of shrimp paste and bright red pickled Fresno chiles. The result puts poutine to shame, but be sure to eat them as soon as they come out of the cart’s window—the fries hold up, but they’re best when eaten hyperfresh.

2. YāYā PDX

1451 NE Alberta St., 503-477-5555, yayapdx.com. 4-9 pm Wednesday-Sunday.

Chef Steven Chin calls Cantonese barbecue his soul food, and you really feel that. The streamlined menu focuses on serving meat over rice with hot mustard, dipping sauce and pickled cucumber and carrot. It’s simple and it’s great. YāYā particularly nails the duck and char siu pork. Of all the duck we’ve sampled (and it’s been many; sorry to our avian friends), Chin’s is the most five-spice forward. The ducks he selects also have more meat on the bone than many others, leading to luscious full bites of bird. As Cantonese duck is served chopped and bone-in, this means a bigger and better payoff as you nibble.

3. Derby

8220 Denver Ave., 503-719-7976, derbypdx.com. 9 am-2 pm Wednesday-Sunday, 5-10 pm Thursday-Sunday.

Judith Stokes’ Derby is both a work in progress and an act of imagination: an all-in-one restaurant, bar, cafe and market with a patio for outdoor dining and events like live music and drag bingo. For now, Derby is first and foremost a brunch restaurant offering up the classic paralyzing choice: sweet or savory. If you’re dining in a group of four, no problem: You can split the cardamom custard French toast, mini macadamia nut waffles, massive (20-ounce) breakfast burrito, and the white cheddar, arugula and mustard aioli breakfast sandwich. You may also want some sides, like pandesal sweet rolls—not unlike Hawaiian sweet rolls, but with a more substantial crust and crumb—and longanisa sausage, a nod to Stokes’ Filipino heritage.

4. The Soop

1902 W Burnside St., 971-710-1483, thesoopportland.com. 10 am-8 pm Monday-Friday, 11 am-8 pm Saturday.

The Soop has certainly been mistaken for a kitschy soup spot more than once. However, soop is a Korean word for forest, and when you visit, you’ll see why the name fits so well. Especially in the evening, the cozy restaurant glows with shades of warm magenta emanating from lamps that hang over microgreen planters in the kitchen. It’s strange to imagine fresh lettuce could make such a difference, but everything on Ann Lee’s somewhat eccentric menu—dishes as dissimilar as bibimbap, chicken and microgreen nachos, and even a BLT— benefits from the microgreens treatment.

5. Gumba

1733 NE Alberta St., 503-975-5951, gumba-pdx.com. 4:30-9 pm Sunday, Mondays and Thursdays, 4:30-9:30 pm Friday-Saturday.

As a food cart, Gumba punched above its weight, serving fresh pastas, handmade burrata and ambitious snacks that made you want to linger at an outdoor table. Now it’s a brick-and-mortar in a time of takeout only—but you’ll still want to break out the candles, placemats and cloth napkins once you get the food home: No meal in 2020 provided more of a “this feels like we are in a restaurant” frisson than Gumba’s beet, cabbage and endive salad, pappardelle with braised beef sugo, pan-roasted steelhead trout, and eggplant olive oil cake.

6. Toki

580 SW 12th Ave., 503-312-3037, tokipdx.com. Dinner served 5-9 pm daily, brunch 10 am-3 pm Friday-Sunday.

At the moment, Toki is for all intents and purposes Han Oak, with a menu that includes both greatest hits and revised versions of other old favorites. But there’s also food that chef Cho was not inclined to cook much in the past, including bibimbap and a steamed bao burger, maybe the world’s first reheating-friendly cheeseburger. The star item, though, is the Gim-bap Supreme, which takes its inspiration from both Taco Bell and the TikTok “wrap” trend, in which a tortilla is partially cut into four quadrants, topped with four different ingredients, folded into layers, and griddled.

7. Bocci’s on 7th

1728 SE 7th Ave., 503-234-1616, boccison7th.com. 4-9 pm Friday-Sunday.

Bocci’s on Southeast 7th isn’t hip, but it avoids being stodgy. It’s not gourmet but is still wonderfully delicious. Walking in, you’ll be greeted by super-warm staff, and possibly the sounds of Bob Dylan floating from the kitchen, before being set up with free house-baked bread—dense and soft with a crusty, salty edge—served with olive oil and vinegar. Their star dish is the chicken Marsala: a generous chicken breast lightly breaded and still very moist, served piping hot over spaghetti and a Marsala wine sauce that was buttery and rich without being painfully decadent.

8. Buddy’s Steaks

5235 NE Sandy Blvd., 215-694-8095, buddyssteaks.com. 11 am-7 pm Thursday-Monday.

What’s a cheesesteak without cheese or steak? Vegan cheesesteaks are all over Philadelphia, but Buddy’s exists because co-owners Buddy Richter and Angela D’Occhio hadn’t found any meatless cheesesteaks that lived up to their own pre-vegan, Philly native memories. The “steak” is made in-house by Richter, and the cashew- and coconut-based whiz is available as either “provolone” or “cheddar,” which is an especially radioactive-looking orange.

9. Everybody Eats

138 NW 10th Ave., 503-318-1619, everybodyeats503.com. 3-10 pm Monday-Friday, 11 am-10 pm Saturday, 10 am-6 pm Sunday.

Launched as a catering service on the outer eastside, Everybody Eats has moved into the heart of the Pearl District, bringing a menu inspired by co-owner Johnny Huff Jr.’s family roots in Texas and Louisiana. The showstopper is the Ultimate Seafood Mac-and-Cheese: shrimp, lobster and crab mixed in with cheese sauce and noodles, with half a lobster tail, two prawns and lump of crab meat on top.

10. Chayo

3601 SE Division St., instagram.com/chayopdx. Lunch 11:30 am-2 pm, dinner 4:30-8 pm dinner Thursday-Saturday, 11:30 am-6 pm Sunday.

When he dreamed of opening a loncheria in 2018, David Lizaola imagined serving classic Jaliscan lonches on lime- and beer-enriched birote. When he couldn’t find birote in Portland, he pivoted to ciabatta—and while it may not be traditional, it’s still damn good. In the Hot Oli, Lizaola gives his pork loin an adobado treatment by massaging the cuts with a blend of guajillo pepper, herbs, alliums, and warming spices. It’s a perfect sandwich.