Filed under: Japanese, Korean, Southeast Portland | Tags: Japanese, kimchee, Korean, paleo, restaurant, southeast portland
15 Southeast 9th Avenue, Portland, OR
Happy New Year! Sorry for the long hiatus. The holidays get pretty crazy!
Our first new restaurant of 2013 was not a complete bust we are happy to say 
They’re in the same building of Simpatica, so we’ve heard about it, but didn’t know much about it. Then over the holidays it was recommended to us, so we thought we’d stop by here for Happy Hour.
What we ordered: From the Happy Hour Menu: Chicken skewer, Beef steak skewer, “Bara” Pork Belly Skewer, Onigiri (Grilled rice ball), Yakionigiri (seaweed wrapped rice with pickled plum inside), From Regular Menu: Kani Salad (The Special of the day: crabmeat with arugula), Pork Kimchee Stew
How we ordered it: As is. We’ve added rice to our diet…. Though for no rice, you could easily get the pork kimchee stew without rice cakes if you wanted. Also, you could easily not order the rice balls or seaweed rice wrap as well 
What we received:
Small bowl of mildly spiced popcorn, they give everyone at the beginning of your meal.
Kani salad (crabmeat with arugula)
Chicken and Beef Steak skewer
“Bara” Pork Belly Skewer
Yakionigiri (Rice wrapped in seaweed with pickled plum inside)
Pork kimchee stew with rice cake
Grilled rice balls.
It’s amazing how the pictures look when you have good lighting! Gee…
Cost: Kani Salad (crabmeat and arugula)- $12, Chicken, Steak, Pork Belly Skewers – $2 each (happy hour special), Rice balls and rice seaweed wrap – $1 each (happy hour special), Pork kimchee stew – $7
Quality: Very high quality meat. They’re like the other restaurants in Portland, it’s hormone free, antibiotic free, natural…’n all that good stuff. Really tasty, really surprised at how good it was!
Quantity: Hmmm…how do you verbalize that look when you’re thinking, ‘I don’t think so” or “oooo! that’s gotta hurt”, and you suck air in your mouth with widened bottom lip….
MEAT-O-METER SAYS!!
The Kani Salad was described as a sizable salad. Eek, maybe we should have told him that we’re big eaters and I guess we should have told him we were sharing it. Considering how hungry I was, I would have eaten the entire thing in 6 bites. For $11, I was expecting it to be slightly larger. Though it was dungeness crab meat, so I guess that’s how it goes….don’t get me wrong though, it was very very tasty.
Which led us to be slightly worried about the size of the rest of our meal. The skewers, though single portioned, were incredibly well made: moist and tasty, really great meat. Since it was Happy Hour, we decided to get another Pork Belly Skewer. I think on the regular menu the skewers are $4 each, so a bit on the expensive side for our tastes.
For our sizable meat intake needs, Biwa didn’t quite meet them. Hence, the sideways thumbs. Happy hour is great here though!
If you didn’t want to eat rice, didn’t go during Happy Hour and wanted a really fulfilling meal, you will have to be ready to spend a bit more. You’ll be dropping some dollars for small portioned dishes as well as the number of dishes you’ll have to order to feel full. Though this is a Japanese/Korean restaurant with rice being a staple of the culture’s diet, not eating rice would be difficult here, but do-able.
When we left at 6:30 pm-ish, it was packed and a line had formed! So obviously a very popular joint with high quality cooking.
Overall though, we enjoyed it and we’ll definitely be back fro Happy Hour! Pork belly skewer…mmmmmm.
Filed under: Korean, Northeast Portland | Tags: chicken wings, micro-restaurant, Northeast Portland, paleo, Portland
2329 NE Glisan St., Portland, OR 97232
(971) 271-8260
There’s a micro restaurant complex on NE Glisan and 24th. A couple restaurants opened that are small and “micro” meaning you order at the register, get a number and they bring you your food. We’ve been to a bunch of these restaurants and the quality of the food has been very surprising. The first one of the many micro restaurants that had popped up in this area is Basa Basa. It’s Korean-fried chicken. It’s gaining in popularity. In Korea, the fried chicken is a popular street and bar food, mostly eaten with some Soju or beer. It’s amazingly moist and crispy, so I’ve heard. There is a US food chain called Bon Chon that serves Korean Fried Chicken and I’ve been so curious to try it. So when we heard this place opened up in Portland, we had to try it!
What we ordered: Basa Box of 6 chicken wings, comes with mac salad and rice.
How we ordered it: Well, the menu is very simple. 1) Choose between a Box of 3, 6, or 10 wings. (Boxes come with two sides: mac salad and rice) 2) Choose between 3 sauces. 3) If you order a la cart wings, then the sides are mac salad or rice. That’s it. Here’s the menu:
Basa Basa Menu (Click to Enlarge)
What we received:
6 chicken wings
Cost: Box of 6 wings – $10, Box of 10 wings – $14, only 6 wings – $6.50, only 9 wings – $11.50
Quantity: I’d say they were a little on the small side. Small scoop of the sides was OK. I definitely was not full after this plate of wings. Probably because of all the gluten.
Quality: These wings were very tasty. Of course it could have been because I had forgotten how good meat is when it has flour breading on it and when it’s fried. It was hard to appreciate it, everything definitely tasted good, but as far as trying to eat “cleaner” when at a restaurant, this place is NOT the place to go if you are trying to go “clean”.
Meat-O-Meter says!
I so wanted this place to be awesome. The very simple menu didn’t have any options with vegetables. Unfortunately for us, we like to have a lot of options, especially if all there are high carb foods on their menu. Granted the fried chicken itself should have given us a clue, but what if the chicken was mind blowing? I had heard so many great things about Korean fried chicken that I couldn’t pass it up without first trying it out. (If Fire on the Mountain can not use flour on their wings, maybe this place could too?)
Well, now we know. Super tasty, but maybe it would be appreciated more by people on less dietary restrictions such as ourselves.
On another note, this micro restaurant complex does have an awesome taco place though, Uno Mas, review coming soon!
2850 SE 82nd Ave #11, Portland, OR 97266
(In the Fubon Shopping Center on SE 82nd)
503.808.9990
Is this the first official Korean restaurant meateats review?!?!?! Weird.
If you haven’t eaten Korean food yet, I highly suggest going to this place right away! You are missing out!
What we ordered: To make the meat on the table grill you have to order at least two different meats. We got the beef brisket and the spicy pork. We also love mackeral. We always order mackeral when we eat at a Korean restarant.
How we ordered: Pretty much as is. Korean food is TOTALLY Paleo except for the rice! LOVE IT!
What we got:
Spicy pork and thin sliced beef brisket
Pike? Mackeral - the cheaper one
Typical spread at a Korean restaurant
The small dishes of marinated vegetables are called “Banchan”. Korean meals always have Banchan with every meal. At any Korean restaurant you will get Banchan with whatever you order. At this restaurant we got abut 6 or 7 different dishes. The amount varies between restaurants and they usually give you free refills!
Meat cooking on the Grill
Cost: Beef brisket – $15, Spicy Pork – $18. Mackeral – $12
Quality: Great! The thin slices of raw meat quickly cook on the grill. They provide a sesame oil and salt dipping sauce for the meat that is sooo good!
Quantity: It doesn’t look like a lot of meat, but it was A LOT of meat! Hands down Korean food is still my favorite!
MEAT-O-METER says!
Korean restaurants are for the most part a win win situation. You get a ton of food with HUGE flavor. It’s hard to mess up the marinated vegetables. It’s the little things that will make the restaurant awesome. This one was pretty good, better than OK on our radar. We went to a 24 hour Korean restaurant in Chicago and it was sooooo good! If you’re in a big city with a large Asian population, the Korean restaurant will mostly like be a solid choice! They can get a bit pricey, but it’s so tastey and good! There are 2 in Beaverton that are OK too, New Seoul Restaurant and Korean Restaurant near Beaverton Hillsdale Highway and I-217. I’ll try to get their review up asap. But in the mean time, just go check one out!
