Pok Pok, Portland/ by Shelley Lance, Blog Editor
Pok Pok, in the Clinton/Division neighborhood, is one of my favorite Portland restaurants, and I was excited to take my husband, Frank, there on our weekend vacation. I love the casual outdoor seating and the vibrant flavors of chef/owner Andy Ricker’s (yep! a white guy) Thai (mostly) food. We started with drinking vinegars- Pok Pok has a long list of vinegars- some housemade- mostly fruit-based but also made from tamarind and honey and other ingredients. The drinking vinegars are also used in cocktails, but for the middle of the day I like them best just mixed with sparkling water. I had the pineapple (delicious!) and Frank had Taiwan Lemon.
Pok Pok, named for the sound a mortar and pestle makes, is busy, fast, friendly, and efficient. It always looks like the place is mobbed, but you’re seated and served pretty quickly. We ordered one of their most popular dishes- fish sauce chicken wings. The sweet, caramel-y fish sauce glaze is addictive! Frank called it “chicken dessert.” (Though perhaps the wings could have been cooked a few minutes less so the chicken would have been a little bit juicier.)
We also got a tasty flank steak salad, and- my favorite- smoky charcoal grilled eggplant salad with boiled farm egg, fried garlic, dried shrimp, cilantro, shallots, and Thai chilies in a spicy sweet sour dressing. That dish was packed with flavor! The eggplant was peeled and sexy-soft. The hard boiled egg was chopped and strewn over the top. Altogether amazing. Our sticky rice came in little bamboo steamers and it was interesting to me that the rice was tucked inside a little plastic bag.
Our $40 lunch at Pok Pok turned out to be Frank’s favorite meal of the whole weekend!
In addition to Whisky Soda Lounge, which is right down and across the street from Pok Pok, Ricker owns another joint, Ping, in Portland’s Chinatown, an area I’ve never explored, so maybe on the next visit. (Not sure what’s there; you don’t hear about it much. I suspect it’s somewhat run-down. But I always have wanted to check out the Chinese Garden there.)
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