The mighty gastropolis : how Portland's rule-bending chefs handcrafted the new urban cuisine

"Explore[s] the ingenious outsider cooks, the obsessive impulses, and the raging gustatory dishes behind America's newest food capitol." —Mike Thelin, commentator for Unique Eats and co-founder of Feast Portland The Mighty Gastropolis goes deep behind the scenes to explore the kitchens, personal lives, and mindsets of Portland's celebrated cooks to chronicle, with humor and panache, a people's army of maverick chefs, artisans, obsessives, farmers, food carters, and plucky pioneers who have created a risk-taking, no rules food town unlike any other: one that is exporting its culinary ethos, innovations, and sensibilities to America's gastronomic power zones in New York, LA, Chicago, and countless other cities that are coming under its spell: a spell and culinary imagination that, according to Bon Appétit Restaurant and Drinks Editor, Andrew Knowlton, emanates from "a city thriving with creativity, passion, and an anything-goes attitude for all things edible." In this book, you will learn, ingredient by ingredient, experiment by experiment, dish by dish, how Portland's culinary cognoscenti have re-imagined and reconfigured restaurant culture for modern times and established a new paradigm for how to succeed in the fiercely competitive, no-chops-barred worlds of both hi- and lo-fi dining. The result, as Thomas Lauderdale, founder of Pink Martini, explains, "is a hilarious, heart-warming, punk-rock portrait of a daringly creative Mecca showing the rest of America a better way to eat—and live." This is a landmark contribution to the literature of food. And, perhaps best of all, the book's recipes are roadmaps to rarified states of gastro-nirvana. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION: Dispatches from the Culinary Renegade Zone CHAPTER 1 BEASTIE BOYS: A band of meat slayers carve out a world of pure, audacious delights. Welcome to Porklandia. GABRIEL RUCKER / LE PIGEON + LITTLE BIRD Arugula and Plum Salad with Pecorino Dressing BBQ Pigeon and Dirty Potato Salad Grilled Steak with Bacon-Roasted Mushrooms and Black Trumpet Butter Foie Gras Butter Bird BBQ Sauce Le Pigeon’s Foie Gras Profiteroles TOMMY HABETZ / BUNK SANDWICHES + BUNK BAR Bunk’s Pork Belly Cubano Tagliatelle with Uncle Margaret’s Chicken Liver Ragu Tommy’s Milk-Braised Pork Shoulder Bunk’s Milk-Braised Pork and Wilted Mustard Greens Sandwich THE BUTCHER BOYS / TORO BRAVO + TASTY N SONS + LAURELHURST MARKET + SIMPATICA Roasted Sauvie Island Parsnips with Orange-Sage Gremolata Laurelhurst Market’s Mac ’n’ Cheese with Potato Chip Crust Tasty n Sons’ Cheddar-Baked Apples with Bacon Lardons and Spiced Maple Syrup Tasty Beef Jerky Tasty Bloody Mary DAVID BRIGGS / XOCOLATL DE DAVID Chorizo Xocolatl Sandwich CHAPTER 2 LOCAL HEROES: Four chefs reset the homegrown table with strange beauty and extreme pleasures. JOHN TABOADA / NAVARRE Heirloom Tomatoes and Peaches Roasted Beet Greens with Gruyère Polenta with Candied Beets, Fresh Cherries, and Pickled Porcini Navarre’s Pickled Porcini Halibut Baked with Aïoli MATT LIGHTNER / CASTAGNA Salsify Impersonating Forest Logs Scallops in Parsley-Root Milk with Frozen Pear Ice KEVIN GIBSON / EVOE Evoe’s Seasonal Squash Salad (Two Variations) Kevin ́s Cauliflower Soup with Five Variations MARK DOXTADER / TASTEBUD Whole Lemon and Raw Asparagus Pesto Tastebud’s Original Berry Cobbler CHAPTER 3 THE ASIAN STREET FOOD GANG: From ramen shops to animated whiskey lounges, Portland rethinks hawker cuisine for a new generation. ANDY RICKER / POK POK + PING + WHISKEY SODA LOUNGE Pok Pok’s Grilled Corn with Salty Coconut Cream and Limes Ping’s Grilled Pork Collar with Spicy Isaan Dipping Sauce Whiskey Soda Lounge’s Skewered Chicken Butts Kopitiam Toast with Kaya (Coconut Jam) Tamarind Whiskey Sour PATRICK FLEMING / BOKE BOWL Hot Boke Sauce Miso-Butterscotch Twinkies NONG POONSUKWATTNA / NONG’S KHAO MAN GAI Nong’s Thai Pickled-Garlic Omelet CHAPTER 4 SUPPER CLUB RENEGADES: Communal tables are never-ending dinner parties with some of the best food to be found: boisterous, bountiful, and barely legal. NAOMI POMEROY / BEAST Maple-Sugared Pork Belly on Toast with Fava Beans and Pickled Green Strawberries COURTNEY SPROULE / DIN DIN SUPPER CLUB Green Garlic Soup with Savory Pain Perdu and Steamed Mussels Lamb Chops with Merguez Sausage and Pickled Blueberries Hazelnut Panna Cotta with Pinot Noir Strawberries YIANNI DOULIS / WILD GOOSE FARM Wild Goose Fromage Blanc Balsamic-Roasted Cherries CHAPTER 5 FOOD-CART REBELS: Portland’s pavement gourmets create food malls and town squares of the future. The Big Egg’s Arbor Lodge Fried-Egg Sandwich The Sugar Cube’s Chocolate Caramel Potato Chip Cupcakes The Sugar Cube’s Banana What What Shakes The Sugar Cube’s Candied Maple Bacon CHAPTER 6 THE NEW PIONEERS: Small-batch coffee roasters, salumi fanatics, and daring entrepreneurs detour away from corporate models to blaze fresh trails. ADAM McGOVERN & ARIC MILLER / COFFEEHOUSE NORTHWEST + STERLING COFFEE ROASTERS Da’ Sterling Bombs (Espresso Ganache–Stuffed Chocolate Cookies) ELIAS CAIRO & NATE TILDEN / OLYMPIC PROVISIONS Savory Chorizo Doughnuts Salt & Straw’s Melon and Prosciutto Ice Cream KURT HUFFMAN / CHEFSTABLE + GRUNER + ST. JACK + WAFU + OVEN & SHAKER + OX The Mighty Gastropolis Cocktail INDEX A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T V W X Y Z MAP THE MIGHTY 100 About the Author Portland, Oregon, is a city that's screaming "Hey, world, check me out!" and Karen Brooks is its food-writing doyenne and ambassador. The Mighty Gastropolis is her insider's look at this exciting food scene. The book is part guidebook and part handbook, painting colorful pictures of the people and places that make Portland unique. More than 75 recipes from Portland's hottest chefs, mixologists, and confectioners round out this compilation Explores the kitchens, personal lives, and mindsets of Portland's celebrated cooks to chronicle, with humor and panache, a people's army of maverick chefs, artisans, obsessives, farmers, food carters, and plucky pioneers who have created a risk-taking, no rules food town unlike any other, which is exporting its culinary ethos, innovations, and sensibilities to America's gastronomic power zones.