Aramsey Spiced Brunch

I’ve been a fan of Ruchikala, the name of the food business of Kusama Rao, for years. Unfortunately with her time divided between Arizona and Portland we don’t get access to her food as nearly as much as I and many of her other fans would like given that was the main feedback from this meal (and pretty much all her others) from multiple guests. So, whenever you see an opportunity announced on her social media, be sure to jump at the opportunity!

For this particular popup she collaborated with another all female owned business, Public Provisions, who provided cocktails to go with the four courses for this Aramsey Spiced Brunch. Public Provisions  which is a traveling bar service run by partners Melanely Schmidt and Malia Meyers. Lucky for all of us, Public Provisions is also opening a bar where you can reliably enjoy some of their creative and fun drinks – more on this at the end!
 

For now, let’s take a look at this special Aramsey Spiced Brunch I enjoyed with four courses and four paired cocktails.

Course 1

The Bengali Breakfast Sando, with Panch phoron maple sausage, habanero carrot halva butter, and Kumi’s house sourdough english muffin with all sorts of spices like nigella seed, fenugreek.

This was paired with an Indian spiced Bloody Mary that included sarina pudi, carrot, lovage, blistered jalapeno, sesame oil, and more spices as picked out by Kumi included toasted cumin. Of all the courses, all were spectacular but this was probably my vote for favorite if I had to choose.

Course 2

Saruu Kanji, a brown butter congee with a tamarind fenugreek tomato stew that includes 17-18 spices toasted to different degrees – this is one of the things I adore about Kumi’s cooking is the explosion of flavors with her expertise in spices that include tart, sweet, spicy, savory all as it opens up on your tongue. Finally this is topped with a poached pastured egg for extra richness.

This was paired for contrast with a Cooler cocktail with sour green apple, cucumber water, mint, dill seed, garden gin, and keora water and anise.

Course 3

This is one of Kumi’s classic dishes that she has been serving ever since she started Ruchikala – Rogan Josh, a spicy lamb curry. Here, the long simmered spicy lamb curry is combined with black cardamom, kashmiri chili oil, salt cured lemon coconut mustard polenta with yogurt, saffron, clove, nutmeg and other spices.
 
This is paired now with an Herbal cocktail concocted with bonal, orange, lime cordial, pimms, turmeric, cinnamon, fennel, and some candied ginger.

Course 4

Finally a dessert to calm down the spices of the three previous courses – though whether you thought it was spicy depends on your sensitivity (I didn’t think it was spicy except the first course). Here, Kumi decided to do a less sweet take on an Indian dessert, a Gulab Jamun Layered Crepe. Layered crepes are built with saffron cardamon syrup, candied pistachios, and cardamon cream.
 
This was paired with my favorite of the four cocktails, though I really enjoyed all four beverages. Here I had the Crunchy Chai cocktail, with housemade chai with lillet, aged rum, crispies, peanut oil, turmeric, cardamon, and chamomile coconut foam. The spoon of crispies is meant to be dipped into the cocktail, as a nod to cereal!

Miranda is the new bar that Public Provisions plans to soft open starting this Friday I believe. The bar will be mainly open for lunch to happy hour to start, and is located on the second floor of the Portland Food Hall (next to Luc Lac). The chance to open a bar fell into their laps sooner then expected so they’ll be feeling it out

Expect fun drinks like this though that are creative and lean towards tropical without being Tiki, reflecting the backgrounds of the two phenomenal founding bartender ladies from South America and Hawaii. Follow the Public Provisions Instagram to see more events they are slinging libations that you could get in on!

Which of these courses or cocktails sounds most interesting to you?