The August Hit List: Lazy Susan, Aviv, Taqueria Los Punales, Malka, and More

This vegan Middle Eastern restaurant, known for its impressive array of hummus, started as a popular food cart in 2012. After gaining popularity for their hummus and falafel, chef Tal Caspi and co-owner Suzanne Prinsen launched a series of pop-ups before opening in 2017. Since then, Aviv has continued to impress, even during the pandemic, with that extensive selection of hummus, the popular shawarma fries, vegan falafel, seasonal veggies, Impossible burgers, and more.

Dining status: Delivery and takeout available. Order here.

A sunny, yellow restaurant with an expansive patio, Daisy Bar + Cafe is pulling out all the stops for your pandemic dining. Open seven days a week serving Lowcountry fare, with daily happy hour and frozen cocktails starting at 2 p.m., this Northeast Portland restaurant is prepared to bring back a little sense of the before-times to your life. Happy hour specials include $1 oysters (Thursdays only), French onion soup and Southern-style wings. 

Dining status: Outdoor dining and takeout available.

Oyster lovers can now put down their shucking knives and breathe easy. Southeast Clinton’s Jacqueline, the city’s seafood-centric restaurant maybe best known for $1 oyster happy hours, has reopened for dining with a newly built street patio and $1 oysters during all open hours. Diners can now walk up, bar-style, to the doorway to order to-go or for dining out at one of the 10 streetside tables. The menu has expanded to include a large selection of summery small plates — think roasted peaches with feta and basil; lobster steam buns; and yellowtail crudo — alongside larger plates, seasonal desserts, cocktails, and wine. 

Dining status: Outdoor dining and takeout available.

Recently opened Lazy Susan from Earl Ninsom (Langbaan and Eem), Andrew Mace (Le Pigeon), and pastry sorceress Nora Antene (Le Pigeon, Ava Gene’s) is tailor-made for socially distanced dining. The restaurant was set to open mere weeks before the pandemic shutdown, so the star-studded team has had the entire summer to consider best practices for safe dining. Now entering their second month of service, they’re is serving a menu of dishes you wish were at your backyard cookouts: charcoal-fired mature dairy cow ribeye, slow-grilled pork, and glazed king salmon collar to pair with veggie sides sourced from the nearby Montavilla Farmers Market. Those dining at the restaurant’s sidewalk seats can also enjoy cocktails and slushies (from Han Oak’s Michelle Ruocco), beer, wine, root beer floats, and more. 

Dining status: Outdoor dining and takeout available. More info here.

There’s a little something for everyone at Malka. Open for takeout from noon – 9 p.m, Tuesday through Sunday, this recently opened restaurant from the owners of food cart Carte Blanche have culinary globetrotting on lock. Dishes include Indian-inspired rice bowls, Thai-spice-infused pork ribs, sunflower-almond red mole with barbacoa short ribs and more. Call 503-899-4245 for same-day pick-up.

Dining status: Takeout available.

Montelupo Italian Market, brand new and in this case from 28th Avenue alum Adam Berger, is bringing affordable, fresh pasta, seasonal veggie dishes, cocktails and a host of grab-n-go items to Northeast Portland. That fresh pasta, made window-side, looks like cavatelli, tajarin and tortellini, studded with pancetta and served all’amatriciana; tossed in truffle butter beneath a blizzard of parm; or stuffed with prosciutto and mortadella, swimming in Marcella Hazan-inspired tomato sauce. Italian sweets, slushies and cocktails from Trifecta bartending alum Eddie Riddell, pantry items, and more fill out the rest. While outdoor dining is limited, Montelupo and the adjacent restaurant Epif across the street plan to close off part of the street for significantly more seating. 

Dining status: Outdoor dining and takeout available. More info here.

Downtown’s locally sourced Japanese restaurant Shizuku has expanded on its frozen meal kits to include takeout three days a week. Hot takeout meals include a chicken teriyaki burger and pork shumai alongside iced teas to stay cool. Fans can still order an extensive selection of Shizuku favorites, like Oregon Dungeness crab cakes, frozen Japanese soups, and mushroom rice, as well as salad dressings and pickles for pick-up or delivery. Sake, wine, and Champagne are also available for purchase, but must be picked up. 

Dining status: Takeout or delivery (for orders above $50) available. 

This brand new, queer-centric guisado has been serving a large assortment of tacos — including breakfast! — along Southeast Belmont Street for just over a month now. Taqueria Los Puñales, from industry vets David Madrigal (who comes from a lone line of taqueros) and Brian Aster, is pressing fresh tortillas and filling them with more than a dozen different guisados, like tinga, mole poblano, barbacoa, choripapa, and more. Pair with seasonal aguas frescas, margaritas and bottled beer.

Dining status: Indoor and outdoor seating, and takeout available. More info here.

If Portland were to have its own version of deep-dish, it’d be a pie from this neighborhood joint. The crunchy, high-walled, cornmeal-crusted pizzas here arrive topped with a heavy hand of vegetables, classic meat toppings and unusual-but-excellent seasonal combos. Purists can opt for the pepperoni, whose oily edges curl and crisp, but the best pies are those seasonal combinations. The corn pie — topped with smoked mozzarella, balsamic, roasted red onions and fresh sweet corn — and the blue thyme, with its melty blue cheese, caramelized onions and said herb, are favorites. Pizzas can also be ordered whole, or by the half to mix and match.

Dining status: Takeout available. More info here.

A non-profit food service training program, Stone Soup PDX provides culinary and life skills training to people at risk of homelessness. Alongside preparing meals for people ordering takeout, Stone Soup PDX is also donating hundreds of nutritious meals to homeless shelters across the city. The menu is extremely small, with each business day offering a combination of affordable chili, sandwiches, pasta bakes and salads. Meals, and any additional donations, help support the nonprofit’s training programs and feeding those in need. 

Dining status: Takeout available. Order here.