It’s been almost a year since I updated – as COVID-19 quarantine started in March 2020, I stopped dining out as we all went into lockdown. The last post I wrote was about missing the last time I saw my family in Thanksgiving of 2019, and missing travel. Today is a special milestone: it marks the day that I and F get our first Pfizer vaccination shot now that we qualify. It gives me a lot of hope that we will soon be on the road to a slow return to normalcy. I hope all of you out there are doing as well as you can be, and we can eventually return to sharing stories and experiences again over that universal connection of food and drink. I look forward when these quarantine parties of 2 or less (depending on whether F is eating anything) that I’ve had for the past year can expand to include more then my household. In the meantime, maybe it’s time to prepare for travel by traveling around the world with the best takeout in PDX.
It has been a devastating year for Portland food and drink industry. Some beloved establishments have closed, and those in the industry who have persevered are still struggling, most having to pivot to fit these new times. I still have continued to try to be a patron by supporting take-out and delivery from local businesses at least once a week. Everyone on this list is local. That said, it is a limited list. Many of you know that we live in SW Portland and that we do not own a car so I definitely had a limited circle of distance, with only a few exceptions where I rented a ZipCar. Even with vaccinations though, I am definitely cautious of the current atmosphere and AAPI hate incidents that I have fortunately not directly experienced yet, but have heard about happening in Portland second-hand. So you will likely see a very slow uptick of more PDX food and drink highlights from me, but it will be slow. It will still mostly center on take-out and delivery.
That said, I thought maybe I would start with a year in review of the best takeout in PDX I have had in the past year and if you have not had the chance yet, I would recommend you give it a try. Travel around the world with me while still eating in your pjs with these delicious local food creators.
Asia
Order anything here that includes the crispy pork belly. My favorite is the Ba-Mhee Pi-Set, an egg noddle set with five spice pork loin, crispy pork belly, whole soft-boiled egg, pork dumplings, and yu choy, served dry, and then add on chinese sausage. For the vegs they have soy curl on rice or with egg noodle or in a house curry. Theses dishes bring me straight to eating on little plastic stools along the side of the road in Thailand.
