Last summer and this summer, from the chefs behind Ox Restaurant, is a special pop up called Ox Box. Ox Box is only open during lunch, 11 AM – 2 PM daily seven days a week, just in the summer until Labor Day. You can relax in the outdoor seating in the Ox Restaurant parking lot (covered with umbrellas), or inside Whey (where you can also order drinks including cocktails and beer or glasses of cava or rosé if you’re not on the work clock) while a grill man fires up choripan sandwiches over a wood fire. If you think it’s hot now, you gotta feel for this guy behind the grill – come show him some love and treat yourself to some Argentinean lunch! And, they are perfectly happy to wrap all your stuff to go so you can take it home or to the river to eat – just bring lots of napkins. Here’s a look at the Ox Box pop up from my visit.
Choripan sandwiches are chimichurri drenched grilled sandwiches which are very popular in Argentina as street food. Here at Ox Box, you can choose from a menu that includes their housemade chorizo sausage, house morcilla blood sausage with hot peppers and onions, chorizo-spiced Pacific Northwest albacore, or provolone and chorizo spiced eggplant if you are vegetarian – or do a combo like I did (I got both eggplant and chorizo).
All sandwiches come with a Grandma Agnes Dill Pickle Spear, and Ensalada Rusa (a potato salad), but I also highly recommend trying out their empanadas. There are two available – one stuffed with beef, olive and raisin, and the other with grilled poblano, sweet potato, gruyere and fontina (the latter shown below).
New to this year’s edition of the Ox Box pop up is a Halibut Chowder with Jalapeño, Green Onion, and Smoked Marrow Croutons – a riff on the famous Ox clam chowder for dinner only. There is also an Oregon Bay shrimp Ceviche with Citrus, Chiles, Cucumber, Cilantro, and Popcorn if you want something cold and it’s still a day of a heat wave week like today. But, when we get back to those cooler summer days below 90, you do NOT want to miss out on this amazing rich chowder.
This is the Argentinean equivalent to an American hot dog, and with its limited time offering until Labor Day, you should make sure you put a day on your calendar to grab some to try before its gone! They are really generous with the chimichurri sauce – I did not need it for the empanada at all, but was happy to have the container to take home to punch up some grilled meat at home too!
Are you a fan of chimichurri sauce? What kind of choripan sandwich would you try?
