Grace Cafe has taken over the space formerly occupied by Delores and before that Smokehouse Tavern. Some of the remnants of Delores remain, most noticeably with the flamingos that the namesake mother Delores loved that are still seen on the walls. But, unlike the protein heavy Smokehouse Tavern, or rich heavy food of Polish inspired Delores, Grace Cafe is a gluten-free kitchen that sets the stage with a vegan or vegetarian preparation that you can optionally add proteins like Carman Ranch hanger steak, szechuan spied pork belly, Mad Hatcher chicken thigh, or Korean cured salmon. The stars now are the surprising combinations of global influences built upon the foundation of chef and co-owner Brian Han’s Korean heritage, merged with the health consciousness of California upbringing and restaurant experience in the Bay Area and Los Angeles until his move to Portland in 2020. The world influenced flavors at Grace Cafe really make it unique.

As an example, a signature dish found on both the lunch and dinner menu is the Purple Reign. This dish offers okinawan sweet potato with seared oyster mushroom, shiso chermoula, salted plum tzatziki, market greens, and avocado. That’s right, you can find Japanese sweet potato and shiso and salted plum combined with North African chermoula and Greek tzatziki sauce concepts.

Meanwhile at dinner, where you will find more entree dishes then the bowl-centered lunch menu, the King Carnitas offers Thai green curry carnitas, yellow corn, rainbow chard, Mario’s sope, daily salsa. Somehow the different spicy layers of Thai green curry with Mexican works, tickling the tongue in different but complimentary ways.

We also tried the Kabocha! a vegan dish with roasted kabocha, miso mole, black lime cashew cream, pickled red onions, pepitas. We both immediately thought how great a dish this would be during Thanksgiving. Thankfully the Grace Cafe team is two steps ahead of us. They are already thinking of sharing the immigrant experience by offering a Korean-American Thanksgiving with items like white kimchi water brined turkey, korean fried chicken with perilla ranch dressing, miso potato gratin, goji-cranberry sauce, miso potato gratin, Japanese curry green bean casserole, japchae inspired stuffing, black sesame coconut cream cornbread, and kabocha pie. YES I’M DROOLING ALREADY SIGN ME UP. Seriously where is the sign up sheet, I’m ready.

But wait there’s more…

[Read more…]