Portland Restaurant: Revelry

What: Revelry
Where: 210 SE MLK Blvd. 
Honeys Heart: Seaweed Noodles & Tuna Bowl

Doug and I celebrated his 30th bday with a trip to San Diego (don't get too jealous - it was rainy the whole time and he got the flu on our last full day), but it was obviously necessary to celebrate with friends when we got back too.

Doug's first pick was Mae, but the stars didn't align in our favor and we had to go with his second choice: Revelry.

I will admit, I had a little bit of attitude about Revelry prior to our dinner, mostly because I do not like kimchi and I was convinced that, being a Korean street food restaurant, they would put it in everything. This was an ignorant and incorrect assumption, and having tasted Revelry's crazy delicious food, I very much regret not giving it a try sooner.

Revelry's menu is divided up into "anytime", "pancake", "noodle", "rice bowl", and "sweets". With our server's help, we narrowed it down to the following dishes to split among 7 people. Here they are in order of favorite to least favorite, though it should be noted that even our least favorite was pretty tasty.

Our group's favorite dish was the Seaweed Noodles ($17) made with Dungeness crab, red curry, and creme fraiche. This was so, so good. The noodles were nice and chewy, and a great contrast to the creaminess of the crab. And while the flavors were more delicate than some of the other dishes, they worked very well together.

Right behind the seaweed noodles was Blackened Tuna Rice Bowl ($16) with cured yolk, koji asparagus, and zucchini. The tuna was seasoned perfectly and our group couldn't get over how tasty the zucchini was. They worked miracles with that squash, let me tell you.

We ordered Mrs. Yang's Fried Chicken ($14) in honor of our attempted meal at Mae and while there's no competing with Maya Lovelace's drumsticks, we all enjoyed this quite a bit. It had just the right kick of spice and the peanut brittle crumbled on top was an inspired addition.

We also tried the Dan Dan Noodles ($16) with chipotle pork and collard greens and while this was good, I'd definitely recommend the seaweed noodles first if you only want one noodle dish.

And in last place, the Short Rib Rice Bowl ($17) with cured yolk, herb tabbouleh, and charred spring onion. This was tasty, but on my next visit, I'll definitely skip this in favor of trying something new (that will not be the case with the seaweed noodles or tuna).

We also tried out a variety of cocktails including the gin & tonic. For whatever reason, people were not as jazzed about the drinks as they were about the food (I thought my G&T was good), but guess you can't win them all.

Doug and I are already plotting when we can go back. It's been over a week, so I think we've waited long enough. Eat you soon, seaweed noodles!

Portland Restaurant: Han Oak

What: Han Oak
Where: 511 NE 24th Ave
Honeys Heart: Everything

Hiiii! Remember us? Your wildly inconsistent blogger friends?

Well, it's 2017 and that means this little blog is coming up on 9 years in existence. Yikes. We're old.

If there is one good thing about getting old, it's that we can now afford some classier dining experiences (when is the last time we even wrote about a happy hour?!) - including dinner at Han Oak.

Tucked behind The Ocean's micro-restaurant complex, Han Oak is a reservation-only, non-traditional Korean restaurant specializing in prix-fixe dinners.

The reservation process is slightly intense (read about it here), but thankfully Kelly, Adam, and I have Doug, planner extraordinaire, who coordinated a dinner reservation for us.

Dinners at Han Oak are $35 per person plus gratuity and whatever drinks and additional plates you have. Doug and I came away from our last hyped-up prix-fixe meal (looking at you, Nodoguro) feeling underwhelmed and still kind of hungry, but that was definitely not our experience at Han Oak. We were so stuffed but also so impressed with the food and drinks. Definitely worth the reservation hassle and the $35.

Here's what we had: 

1) Pork and Chive Dumplings ($9), served with black vinegar broth and ginger

These dumplings are not part of the prix-fixe meal but they are worth the extra cost. Trust me.

2) Korean Fried Cauliflower ($9), with spicy gochujang glaze and bread & butter daikon

The cauliflower was another delicious add-on, but since there are three other veggie dishes on the prix-fixe menu, you could skip this one, no problem. 

3) Napa Cabbage and Daikon Kimchi

4) Roasted Brussel Sprouts with miso and mustard

5) Crispy Sweet & Sour Potatoes with toasted sesame 

I love sweet potatoes and the sour kick that these had in addition to the natural sweetness made this my favorite veggie plate on the menu.

6) Winter Squash with togarashi, meyer lemon, and fried garlic

7) Kalgooksu- egg drop chicken broth with handcut wheat noodles and poached chicken

I didn't think this soup was as flavorful as the other dishes served, but the handcut wheat noodles had a great texture.

8) Smoked Hanger Steak

Both main dishes were served with wrappers of sorts (lettuce with the steak and rice noodle sheets with the pork belly) so you could create your own little hand-held bites. Our server encouraged us to experiment and combine ingredients from both main dishes, which was fun and very tasty.

9) Koji-marinated, slow-roasted Pork Belly with rice noodle sheets, pickled daikon, and scallion salad

I don't usually like pork belly but even I liked this.

To drink, Kel and I both had The Golden Age ($9), made with saffron soju, cocchi americano, mezcal, satsuma, meyer lemon, and gochujang foam.

The description sounds a bit ominous (soju AND mezcal), but the resulting drink was actually quite nice and lighter than I expected.

Han Oak also serves brunch and just announced that they will operate as a no-reservations noodle and dumpling house on Sunday and Monday nights from 5-10pm. Pretty sure we'll need to check that out.