Where to Eat in September: Apizza Scholls, Langbaan, Old Pal, and More

Langbaan, Portland’s back-room Thai tasting menu restaurant, closed its Southeast Portland location earlier this year and relocated inside new sister spot Phuket Cafe. This season’s menu, fittingly inspired by travel to the mother country, starts with a familiar cadence, kicking off with two of the restaurant’s most iconic dishes: the cara cara orange and fish sauce caramel miang som, and the crispy, sweet, salty, coconutty kanom krok, made with Hokkaido scallop. The rest of the menu only speeds up from there: Snacks round out with pineapple-infused ma hor bites before transitioning into the coconut-infused soup dish simmered with clam and hearts of palm. There’s a beef carpaccio with green mango and coconut creme fraiche chips, and an Iberico pork jowl.

The mains in late summer keep it light with a gang luang curry cut with King salmon roe and ripe papaya and halibut collar with makrut lime and a smoked trout relish. No meal here would be complete without one of pastry chef Maya Erickson’s fantastic creations, currently a cake baitoey layered with pandan genoise, lemongrass, lime cream, and jasmine rice ice cream, and a toasted rice and coconut caramel panna cotta.

A Portland neighborhood favorite, best known for American standards and its excellent local beer list, Grain & Gristle has been a go-to lunch, dinner, and brunch spot since opening in 2010. These days, the restaurant has switched its hours to brunch-only, but we’re not complaining. The menu ranges from cozy classics like brioche toast Bennies with smoked pork and a smoked poblano hollandaise and a French omelet with trumpet mushrooms and braised chard, to more European-inspired plates, like blintzes with whipped cheesecake and fresh berries and smorrebrod with house-cured lox, soft-boiled egg, and chevre, served with toast points. Make sure to reserve a spot, seats here fill up quick.

Head to the long-beloved Apizza Scholls to bring home an 18” neo-Neapolitan pie and make the most of summer’s end. Starting at 4 p.m., you can pre-order pizza, salads, and desserts, alongside pop, beer (in cans, bottles, and growlers), and wine for evening pickup daily. From Monday to Thursday, you can also find calzones on the menu. It’s impossible to go wrong here, but we’ve been ordering the “pig & pineapple,” the house twist on Hawaiian pizza with house-cured, smoked Canadian bacon, red onions, and pineapple (we make it a PB&J and add jalapeños), and the “sausage & Mama,” with housemade sausage and Mama Lil’s kick-butt goat horn peppers, for years and they’re as good as they’ve always been.

A new, gluten-free Indian-inspired brunch and lunch spot restaurant just opened along MLK Boulevard. The newest project from Desi PDX chef Deepak Saxena, Masala Lab PDX takes brunch classics like waffles, shrimp and grits, and shakshuka and puts a Desi twist on them. Here, pakora waffles are served with a duo of chutneys, green lentil dhal, and crispy chickpeas. Feel free to add fried tea-brined chicken or mushrooms. Shrimp and grits combine a coconut milk polenta cake with shrimp tikka mole, and the cleverly named “saagshuka” poaches eggs in a creamy green curry. Alongside full brunch plates, find pastries like bread puddings and cardamom-pistachio cookies.

The flagship of the Sesame Collective empire (Shalom Y’all, Dolly Olive), Mediterranean Exploration Company has been serving its Levantine-inspired menu since 2014. Since the pandemic, the restaurant has expanded into the street and now offers substantial outdoor dining to make the most of the last gasp of summer. Start with the radicchio salad, which will be nostalgic for fans of the now-closed Tasty n Sons, and a handful of mezze like the falafel and fried calamari served with tzatziki and a spicy tomato sauce. While there’s no shortage of dishes worth ordering from the piato, grilled and roasted sections (the lamb chops and the short ribs are classics), we love everything in the mezze with pita section. Don’t miss the housemade labneh and whichever hummus catches your eye. Whatever you do, order extra pita. You can thank us later.

Summer days call for…sushi night. The devil is in the details at this straightforward, nigiri-focused sushi-spot-turned-12-seat-omakase. Previously known for its fish-laden seaweed salads, concise nigiri and sashimi, and a stunning chirashi bowl, Nimblefish shines in its simplicity. These days, the sleek space is now a little more intimate, serving up Tokyo-style sushi using ingredients local to Japan and the Northwest. A handful of a la carte options are available to fill out the meal after the nigiri service. Don’t forget your reservations.

Castagna alum Matthew Lightner has returned to Oregon with a beautifully sleek new restaurant in the heart of wine country. Okta, which opened in mid-July in McMinnville’s Tributary Hotel, will be among only a handful of fine-dining restaurants across the state’s wine country and is a worthwhile endeavor for any fans of Lightner’s food. The menu will focus on hyper-seasonality, capitalizing on the best ingredients our region has to offer, even if it’s fleeting. The space, too, is inspired by the palettes of where we live, using muted, rich tones to complement ingredients sourced from the restaurant’s nearby farm and wines paired by longtime Portland somm Ron Acierto.

A European-style bistro focusing on more sustainable foods (read: no land animal proteins) from a husband-wife team (and alums of Ken’s Artisan Pizza and the sadly closed Bistro Agnes) recently opened this summer around the corner from Belmont’s restaurant row. The menu is simple and lovely, with lots of veggie dishes, tinned fishes and cheeses to spread on bread, and a natural wine list to pair. Elsewhere on the menu find snacky bites like gougeres with green garlic aioli, radishes with lemon butter, and oeuf de feu with Yotam’s chile jam. If you’re staying for dinner, larger plates include pole beans with cherry tomatoes and green goddess, a duo of summery salads, vegan sweet corn risotto with lobster mushrooms, and mussels in a bouillabaisse broth.

Call 503-477-9663 for reservations. Find more info here.

As the song goes, they’re here for a good time, not a long time. Tucked behind Northeast Portland’s always-bumping Guero is an escapist summer pop-up from a Michelin-starred alum centered on mariscos (seafood). The space, once a former auto garage, has transformed into a sleek, vacation-inspired patio serving excellent albacore tuna tostadas (a riff on Gabriela Camara’s version at Contramar, where chef Adán Fausto once worked), barbecue oysters studded with chorizo butter, green garlic, and arbol, ceviche, and black cod flautas. If you order a cocktail — the Como Colada was reminiscent of a lighter piña colada — settle in for some seafood and close your eyes, it’s almost as if you can smell the salty air.

Find more info here.

Toki, the casual sister to husband-wife duo Peter Cho and Sun Young Park’s beloved Han Oak, is one of our favorite downtown spots. Find an assortment of greatest hits from Han Oak, like the fried chicken with “ramen essence” and the pudgy pork mandu, alongside fun and light-hearted takes on Korean classics like chee$y corn (with charred pepper mayo), a bulgogi beef sizzler (you know the one), and a scallop dukbokki with an optional “add cheese” to break all the stuffy culinary rules. Elsewhere on the dinner menu are the staple trio of ssam — a choice of koji-cured pork belly, char-grilled boneless short rib, or salt-cured mackerel — all paired with the usual fixins and hand-pulled noodles that rotate seasonally. Currently, it’s biang biang, laced with chile oil, twice-cooked pork, and maitake mushrooms. And if you can’t make dinner, there’s brunch, too, bringing that same fun twist to breakfast classics like steak and eggs, breakfast sandwiches, and hash.