FOOD: Shellabrate Good Times at Bag O’ Crab

FOOD & DRINK Editor: Andi Prewitt Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com

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WHERE TO EAT THIS WEEK.

1. URDANETA

3033 NE Alberta St., 503-288-1990, urdanetapdx.com. 5-10 pm Tuesday-Sunday. If you’ve been waiting for chef Javier Canteras’ Bikini to return to the menu, your patience has just been rewarded. Urdaneta’s take on the classic ham-andcheese sandwich is back and part of a seasonal offerings shake-up. A toasted brioche bun stuffed with jamon serrano, American cheese and sofrito béchamel is what we’ve been longing to bite into once it actually felt like October instead of a prolonged August.

2. CANARD OREGON CITY

1500 Washington St., Oregon City, 503344-4247, canardrestaurant.com. 11 am-2 pm and 4-9 pm daily. Would you travel 20 miles for a Salisbury steak? We’re not talking about the Swanson TV dinner of your youth, but a deliciously beefy slab of seared-andseasoned, dry-aged ground brisket and chuck. The dish is now being served at Canard’s new Oregon City location, and it’s meant to be a “more comforting version” of the restaurant’s original duck frites. You’ll find more riffs on classics and novel offerings at the spinoff, as well as a heck of a lot more seating thanks to its spacious home in the former Grano Bakery.

3. JOJO

902 NW 13th Ave., 971-331-4284, jojopdx. com. 11 am-10 pm daily. A stationary version of the much-loved Jojo food cart has arrived in Northwest Portland. As with the truck, the highlights are smash burgers and multiple permutations of fried chicken, plus the eponymous deep-fried potato wedges, served with a side of sauce of which there are 10. A small order of jojos is ample for two. But go ahead, gild the lily and get one of the loaded versions, with different combinations of cheeses, sauces and alliums.

4. HOLLER

7119 SE Milwaukie Ave., 971-200-1391, hollerpdx.com. Noon-9 pm Monday-Thursday, 11 am-9 pm Friday, 10 am-9 pm Saturday-Sunday. Doug Adams may no longer be in the kitchen at this Sellwood neighborhood chicken joint, but his popular poultry-focused offerings—a spinoff of his friedbird Sundays at Bullard—are still on the menu. Holler also just added a football season menu, which includes pulled pork sliders smothered in barbecue sauce, chili cheese fries, housemade onion rings and portobello wraps. With seven flat-screens and a buck off draft beer, it just got a little more tempting to abandon your couch on game day.

5. THE SEA BREEZE FARM TRUCK

Pops up at Northwest 23rd Place and Thurman Street, seabreeze.farm. 5-7 pm Monday. The Sea Breeze Farm mobile butcher block is like a portal to a French street market that started appearing in Northwest Portland in late summer. Chock-full of fresh and cured meats, the customized truck sells everything from duck rillettes to pork cheek and belly to whole chickens raised by George Page and Rose Allred, partners in business and life. Their passion for their trade is evident in the quality of the products themselves as well as their enthusiasm for farm life. When you see the white Magic Meat Truck on 23rd and Thurman, do not pass it up.

BOILING POINT: A typical combo boil at Bag O’ Crab comes with several types of crustaceans.

Clawsome Sauce

Get ready to make a delicious mess at Bag O’ Crab’s first Oregon outpost.

BY ANDREA DAMEWOOD PHOTOS COURTESY OF BAG O’ CRAB

Looking for a good time? Call Bag O’ Crab.

There is no way to feel serious about anything—except, perhaps, demolishing a large bag of Cajun-sauced crustaceans—the moment you step through the doors at this new restaurant on the corner of Northeast 82nd Avenue and Klickitat Street.

From the mural of a giant lobster breaking through a brick wall as lightning strikes from above to the small “fireplace” created by red lights and water vapor to the robot waitress that could be the love child of Rosey the Robot and a Roomba, Bag O’ Crab is a whole scene.

This is the place you—and everyone else, judging by the frequent hour-plus wait times—will want to hold your next celebration, or simply have dinner to jazz up an ordinary Tuesday.

To settle in at your table, pull the branded Bag O’ Crab plastic bib over your head, slip gloves on your hands, and arm yourself with scissors and crackers—tools for your upcoming task. The ritual of it all makes it feel like you’re suiting up for something epic. Bring on the crab claws.

A laminated menu lists the many things you may have boiled and brought to you in a bag: crawfish; shrimp (heads on or off); snow, king and Dungeness crabs; and a whole-ass lobster, among others.

For the uninitiated, a boil is an extraordinarily messy and super-fun affair most associated with Louisiana. There, when crawfish are in season in the spring, even grocery stores have massive tanks of the freshwater crustaceans for sale. You grab those and lots of spicy seasoning and throw it all in a pot with red potatoes, corn and sausage. The steaming medley is then dumped out on the table, and you stand around picking tail meat out of them water bugs, pausing only to slurp cold beer from a can. At Bag O’ Crab, the method is similar: Throw your shells anywhere on the table—large strips of butcher paper are rolled out and refreshed between each seating.

There are a few other boil restaurants in town, including My Brother’s Crawfish and Rockin’ Crab & Boiling Pot, but the large space and party vibes fostered by owner Gary Lin and his daughter Yuxin Lin make Bag O’ Crab special. There are locations in California, Washington and Texas; this franchise is the first in Oregon.

I suggest going for one of the combos, particularly Combo 4 ($83.95): a lobster or Dungeness

crab, 1 pound of head-on shrimp or three-quarters of a pound of headless, 1 pound of crawfish, 1 pound of clams, two corn segments, two potatoes and four sausage slices. This feeds three people easily, but spring for an additional order of potatoes ($1.50 for three pieces) and corn (95 cents), and do not miss out on the garlic bread ($3.95 for three pieces) and garlic noodles ($7.95), which all act as carby sponges to sop up the spicy, buttery boil mixture.

There’s a mess o’ sauces—I say go classic Cajun—with heat levels ranging from “not spicy” to “on fire.” I’m not a spice wuss by any means, but I think venturing above medium isn’t recommended for anyone except capsaicin freaks.

Bag O’ Crab has other items on the menu that are not crab, nor in a bag, such as grilled fish ($12.95) and wings ($7.95 for six, $12.95 for 10). Why order them, though? (This is not a comment on their quality, but everyone is here for the bagged shellfish.)

When the robot arrives (recently crowned with a witch hat for Halloween), grab your bag, pour it into the provided big metal bowl, and get moving. A tip: You can lightly press down on both sides of the tail of a crawfish and sort of push the meat up from the bottom. Things will feel almost frantic as you’re cutting into a fatty lobster claw and getting at those first bites, but you and your tablemates will slow, ultimately picking at the last of the shrimp and finishing off the garlic noodles.

You will leave satisfied, maybe a little tired and, if you’re me, certainly resolved to have your next birthday party there.

WHERE TO DRINK THIS WEEK.

1. WONDERWOOD SPRINGS

8811 N Lombard St., 971-242-8927, wonderwoodsprings.com. 8 am-8 pm Tuesday-Sunday. Mike Bennett’s new cafe is mostly about the art: 400 hand-painted pieces, ranging from cute woodland creatures to a sleeping dragon. However, this isn’t just another of the prolific artist’s pop-up exhibits. You really can eat and drink at Wonderwood Springs. Expect to find two custom coffee blends personally selected by Bennett, along with a regular hot chocolate and another made with mushrooms.

2. OYATSUPAN BAKERS

16025 SW Regatta Lane, Beaverton, 503941-5251, oyatsupan.com. 8 am-3:30 pm daily. Though best known for its milk bread and sweet rolls, Oyatsupan also serves a variety of warm beverages to go with those baked goods. The newest menu item is a hojicha latte, a Japanese green tea typically steamed to stop the oxidation process and then roasted, resulting in little to no bitterness as well as a low caffeine content. Oyatsupan promises it is the perfect drink to transition from summer to fall thanks to the nutty notes from the tea and the creaminess of the oat milk.

3. SMITH TEAMAKER

500 NW 23rd Ave., 503-206-7451; 110 SE Washington St., 503-719-8752; smithtea. com. 10 am-6 pm daily. As we get closer to the holiday season—prime tea-drinking time—Portland’s renowned full-leaf tea company has partnered with Farina Bakery to create a pairing menu for both of its tasting rooms. You can now get a trio of colorful macarons (pistachio, rainbow sprinkle and lemon) to go with Smith’s Moroccan mint, black lavender and red nectar teas served on a charcuterie-style board that’s perfect for those days you long for Paris but are stuck in Portland.

4. BAD HABIT ROOM

5433 N Michigan Ave., 503-303-8550, saraveza.com/the-bad-habit-room. 4-10 pm Wednesday-Friday, 9 am-2 pm and 4-10 pm Saturday-Sunday. Bad Habit Room has technically been around for about a decade, but previously opened only for weekend brunch and special events. After staying completely shuttered for two years due to the pandemic, it’s back and caters to a different crowd in the evenings. Cocktails take their inspiration from the pre-Prohibition era, and our current favorite is Moon Shoes, made with marshmallow-infused vodka, lemon, orgeat and a splash of Son of Man harvest vermouth that acts as a grounding agent.

5. HETTY ALICE BREWING AT BELMONT STATION

4500 SE Stark St., 503-232-8538, belmont-station.com. Noon-11 pm daily. After launching Living Häus Beer Company with two other Portland brewers at the former Modern Times location this summer, pFriem vet Gavin Lord has spun off his own project inside that same space. The brewery is named after his grandmother, who had a rough upbringing yet became known for her hospitality, a legacy he hopes to carry on with this business. Beer nerds know Lord best for his time as head brewer at Hood River’s pFriem and, after his year off from the industry, are undoubtedly pumped by his return.

Candy Crush

You probably have a stash of leftover Halloween candy— here is a list of sweet cannabis counterparts to pair with those treats.

BY BRIANNA WHEELER

Halloweed should be a national holiday.

Stoners have made up a lot of holidays; CBD Day, Oil Day, National Hemp Day, Legalization Day and, of course, 4/20. So, in the pantheon of imagined, sacred days, Halloweed makes total sense. Hear me out: In the ethereal hours after the Halloween revelry has died down but before Día de los Muertos festivities have commenced, there exists a moment when the veil separating the worlds of the living and dead is at its thinnest and chocolate everywhere just went on sale.

Halloweed is when adults get to stock up on not just the drugstore variety packs, but also the cannabis candies, gummies and potions that can prepare us to commune with the spirits of our ancestors.

Obviously, Halloweed will inevitably become a real, national holiday in no time (you’re welcome), and when that happens, these are the candies I’ll have in my plastic pumpkin pail alongside all of the fun-size confections I can score from Walgreens. Feel free to stock up now and keep the spirit of Halloweed going strong through November. Trick or treat, homies, see you on the moon.

Drops High-Dose Gummies

For stoners with high tolerances, a 100-milligram gummy from Drops might be the key to a night on the astral plane. The candies are all made with a solventless live rosin sourced from cannabis grown at the company’s outdoor farm in the Willamette Valley, and the resulting edibles deliver multifaceted highs that shimmer brighter than those resulting from chemically extracted concentrates. Pair with the classic, non-cannabis Dots gummies that come in a bright yellow box or Mike and Ikes for a candy hangover vibe. BUY: Pakalolo PDX, 1528 SE Holgate Blvd., 503-3698955, pakalolopdx.com.

Mule Extracts Kicker

My own experience with Mule gummies has been consistently great. When I had a 25-milligram ceiling, I could easily portion the cube of jelly to my own preference. Then, when that ceiling rose to 50 milligrams, half a gummy would deliver predictable, strain-specific results. Now that I need 100 milligrams to properly space walk, these gummies still shift my scope without knocking me out. Bonus: The seasonal flavors are very on brand for Haloweed. Pair with peach rings or Swedish Fish for a jaw workout. BUY: Plane Jane’s Dispensary, 10530 NE Simpson St., 971-255-0999, planejanespdx.com.

Grön Chocolate Mega Pearls

Another pastille-style confection that’s perfect for the adult trick-or-treater is Grön’s Mega Pearls, gumball-sized, semi-firm gummies dusted with sparkling sugar. These candies have a special-occasion, borderline-opulent vibe, and at 100 milligrams per pearl, are not for the novice. The gummies are available in a variety of real fruit flavors, and aside from a 1-to-1 CBD-THC version, all deliver similar, full-spectrum effects. Pair with Skittles and sour straws to keep the fruity sugar vibes sparkling. BUY: Satchel, 6900 N Interstate Ave., 503-206-4725, satchelpdx.com.

Laurie + MaryJane Fudge Yourself

Stoners who prefer chocolate over fruity candy will appreciate Laurie + MaryJane’s rich fudge, which is a cross between a confection you’d find at a seaside chocolatier and your grandmother’s holiday classic treat. Which is to say, its formulation is lovingly crafted. In keeping with the hippie grandma ethos, all of this local company’s products are made with full-spectrum, whole-plant coconut oil infusions rather than contemporary extracts. Pair with a Russell Stover variety pack, then call your grandma. BUY: Curaleaf, 5103 NE Fremont St., 503-477-7254, curaleaf.com.

Hapy Kitchen S’mores Chocolate Bar

Hapy Kitchen’s bite-sized chocolate bars are perfect any time of year, but the s’mores bar, which contains graham crackers and miniature marshmallows, feels especially well suited for Halloween consumption. The bars are potent, but easily portioned, so sharing them with your coven is a good idea if you hang in a low-tolerance gang. Pair with Wonka Bars and Milk Duds and pray you keep your tooth fillings. BUY: Northwest Cannabis Company, 17937 SW McEwan Road, 971-634-4400, northwestcannabis.com.

Periodic Edibles Caramels

A buttery chunk of caramel makes me swoon even when it’s not medicated, so Periodic caramels make me double swoon. The 100-milligram rectangles of sugar are easy to share with pals, but also make for a dynamic, single-serving treat when doled out with intention. One of these caramels accompanied by a mug of hot apple cider would make for either a perfect fall meditation session or an afternoon orchard party—depending on your high. Pair with salted caramel truffles to keep from overindulging in the too-delicious weed version. BUY: MindRite Recreational Cannabis Dispensary, 1780 NW Marshall St., 503-477-4430, mindritepdx.com.

Junk Popping Candy Dynamites!

It wouldn’t be Halloweed without cannabis-infused Pop Rocks. Junk’s version comes in three flavors: watermelon, sour orange and strawberry, and while a 100-milligram package can be messily split between friends, real sugar fiends know a single serving when they see one. So if your tolerance for sugar is higher than your tolerance for THC, start slow rather than dumping the whole bag directly into your mouth. Pair with classic Pop Rocks, at least one Ring Pop, and a glass of Champagne, because you’re an adult now. BUY: Diem Cannabis, 5903 SE Milwaukie Ave., 503610-9019, hellodiem.com/portland.

COURTESY OF AMINÉ

Aminé’s Homecoming

The Portland-raised rapper is back in town for a concert with the Oregon Symphony.

BY DANIEL BROMFIELD @bromf3

Aminé started his career as Portland’s hottest rapper by recording jokey diss tracks to rival high schools. A Benson alum, the artist born Adam Aminé Daniel would riff on Grant and Lincoln high schools over rudimentary beats, probably never suspecting he’d find himself standing in front of the Oregon Symphony just a decade later.

With his upcoming performance with the West Coast’s oldest symphony at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, Aminé joins the small but elite group of rappers who’ve performed live with orchestras. Jay-Z’s 2006 show in New York with the 50-piece “Hustlers Symphony Orchestra” brought his debut album, Reasonable Doubt, back to life for its 10th anniversary—and since then, everyone from Nas and Kendrick Lamar to Migos and Sir Mix-a-Lot have chosen to add a little classical gas to their beats onstage.

Despite moving to Los Angeles, Aminé is all but synonymous with hip-hop in Portland, which remains better known globally for downcast indie rock than rap, despite boasting fantastic underground rappers like Old Grape God and Karma Rivera. Only the young party-rap phenomenon Yeat can compete with Aminé for regional adoration and national reach right now.

When Darcie Kozlowski came to Portland in 2019 to join the Oregon Symphony as director of popular programming, Aminé was on a lot of people’s lips in what she describes as a “this-musician-is-going-to-be-huge kind of way.”

Though the pandemic stalled talks between the symphony and Aminé’s team for a while, the success of Nas’ 2021 performance with the symphony prompted Kozlowski to realize “there is an appetite in our community for rap and hip-hop performed with orchestras.” Not long after, Aminé’s team got back in touch again.

Orchestral collaborations with nonclassical artists can be a challenge. For every success like the late Pharoah Sanders’ Promises with the London Symphony Orchestra, there’s a muddy mess like Metallica’s S&M with the San Francisco Symphony. And rap-orchestral collabs have long been the target of ribbing, from The Simpsons’ incongruous pairing of Cypress Hill with a confused string section to underground New York rapper Billy Woods’ barb, “I don’t wanna go see Nas with an orchestra at Carnegie Hall.”

Australia’s Tim Davies is the arranger behind many of the most famous orchestral-rap crossovers. In 2014, he arranged and performed at Nas’ symphonically enhanced 20th-anniversary shows for his classic debut, Illmatic. Since then, he’s worked with Kendrick Lamar, ’80s and ’90s hitmaker Babyface, and art-pop torch singers Maxwell and Moses Sumney.

Hip-hop frequently relies on loops, samples and repetition, so Davies’ challenge is to keep the symphony busy instead of forcing it to play the same short motifs over and over again. “I try to imagine it in larger sections, considering the shape and where I want to build and release,” he tells WW. “Then I listen to the track and hum, sing, groan, yell, hit the piano, make animal noises. Then I write that down and orchestrate it.”

Given the limited rehearsal time for shows such as these, Davies adheres closely to the form of the original songs rather than radically reimagining their structure from the ground up.

“It is easier to say, ‘Wait an extra eight bars at the start,’ rather than have them learn a whole new version and make them uncomfortable and potentially miss something in the show,” he says. “That said, the trick is to be creative with the orchestra within that framework so that it is a true collaboration and not just musicians playing in the background.”

Aminé’s music is uniquely well-suited for an orchestral treatment. The first album he ever bought was Kanye West’s The College Dropout, released in the early prime of West’s sweeping, soul-sampling production style. Aminé’s best work—his breakout hit “Caroline,” its parent album Good for You, and last year’s TwoPointFive—has the sunniness, sonic lushness, cheeky humor, and communal spirit of that classic. All those qualities promise to carry over well to a symphonic adaptation.

“He is an extraordinarily creative artist who is inventive and willing to make bold statements with his music,” Kozlowski says. “Those qualities align perfectly with the Oregon Symphony.”

SHOWS WEEK

WHAT TO SEE AND WHAT TO HEAR

BY DANIEL BROMFIELD @bromf3

FRIDAY, NOV. 4:

Garage-rock fans crowned Ty Segall the new king of the genre as soon as he put out his scuzzy masterwork Melted in 2010, and his influence is still strong in American underground rock. Yet the San Franciscan with the goblin voice is just as adept as a glammy, mystical singer-songwriter, with more sedate albums like Ty Segall and Sleeper stripping back the layers of grime from his music and focusing on hooks and melodies—and this side of Segall will be on display at his acoustic show at Star Theater. Star Theater, 13 NW 6th Ave., 503-284-4700, startheaterportland.com. 9 pm. $30. 21+.

SUNDAY, NOV. 6:

Canada’s Spencer Krug is one of the most eclectic and hardworking musicians in rock. Though past records have found him working with everything from guitar to marimbas, he can often be found hunched behind a keyboard at live shows, and his solo piano performances—like the one he’ll give at Mississippi Studios—represent one of the most intimate, engrossing expressions of his sound and style. Support comes from Saloli, a local artist who released the lovely solo piano album The Island last year. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 503-288-3895, mississippistudios.com. 9 pm. $20. 21+.

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 9:

Craig Finn’s oeuvre of sweeping, obsessively detailed, all-American story-songs is spread over stints in several fantastic bands—first with Lifter Puller, beloved by punk royalty such as Joe Strummer and Billie Joe Armstrong, and most famously with the Hold Steady. He’s the kind of artist who inspires fans to shout along at shows and claim his music saved their lives, and his increasingly great string of solo albums proves his career as the closest thing indie rock has to a Springsteen is far from over. Old Church Concert Hall, 1422 SW 11th Ave., 503-222-2031, theoldchurch.org. 8 pm. $27. All ages.

Escaping the Trauma Trope

Tess Gunty discusses her National Book Award-nominated debut novel, The Rabbit Hutch.

BY MICHELLE KICHERER @michellekicherer

A few days after Tess Gunty’s debut novel, The Rabbit Hutch (Knopf, 352 pages, $28), was announced as a finalist in fiction for the National Book Award, we sat down for a chat in our respective Zoom settings, with my dog snoozing on the couch behind me and her cat sauntering in front of her screen.

As our pets said hello, I congratulated her on the nomination. “When you’re a debut writer,” Gunty says, “your publisher is really taking a risk on you, so any kind of recognition like this is kind of just a relief, like you’re proving that at least their investment in you was not so foolish.”

“Foolish” is the opposite of how anyone would describe Gunty’s book, which tackles class, systemic racism, poorly regulated capitalism, and climate crisis. The themes are explored through the alternating perspectives of characters who live in or are in some way connected to La Lapinière, an affordable housing complex (referred to as the Rabbit Hutch) in the fictional town of Vacca Vale, Indiana.

Each character struggles with a different version of similar demons. At the forefront is Blandine, who turns to education as a means of escape and is one of four former foster youths in the story whose beginnings are molded by the failures of American foster care and public education (and, in general, collective systems of oppression).

After writing each of the foster youths’ backstories, Gunty cut those scenes. “I really didn’t want anyone to be like some mathematical equation of bad experiences,” she says. “I wanted to protect their individuality in the text and to not make anyone interpret their actions as the results of their best and worst experiences in the system.”

That nuanced approach extends to Moses, a middle-aged man whose occasional desire for revenge inspires him to cover his body in fluid from neon glow sticks and break into homes. Yet despite his actions, we can still gather up some compassion for him.

“It was important to me to make all the characters sympathetic, even when they were behaving in frightening and disturbing ways.”

“It was important to me to make all the characters sympathetic, even when they were behaving in frightening and disturbing ways,” Gunty says. “I felt like I had to learn how to root for them when I was writing the chapters.”

Gunty says that the novel’s plot came rather late in her writing process. “I think that’s generally how I write: I tend to follow sentence to sentence, just trying to trust a kind of dream logic that will lead me somewhere, then, after the fact, refining it,” she explains.

Once about a third of her manuscript was formed, Gunty started fleshing out the plot. At the time, she was taking a master’s in fine arts class at New York University about mapping fiction. The professor, John Freeman (who later became her editor at Knopf), had the students retroactively map out the narratives of other novels, then do the same exercise for their own work.

“I took note cards and sort of put them around my room with the main events and the main themes,” Gunty says. “And that’s when I started to realize how the pieces would come together.”

Gunty envisioned many versions of The Rabbit Hutch’s final act. One idea came to fruition with the help of her brother, the artist and musician Nicholas Gunty, who illustrated the action-dense climax of the book with a figurative interpretation of what was going on in the scene.

“Nick understood the aesthetic of the book and what I was looking for really intuitively,” Gunty says. She proposed the idea to Knopf, who quickly gave the go-ahead for the artwork. The illustrated chapter is just one way that The Rabbit Hutch provides a multidimensional view of its characters’ responses to the events they experience.

By displaying each character’s unique response to the same situations, the novel offers a fresh escape from the trauma trope. Gunty references Parul Sehgal’s 2021 New Yorker article “The Case Against the Trauma Plot,” stating that film and literature often rely too heavily on trauma as a way to explain their characters into a set of paper-flat symptoms.

“Yes, trauma does affect us, and there’s no getting away from that,” she says. “But the way individuals react to traumatic events varies tremendously from individual to individual.”

GO: Tess Gunty appears in conversation with Cecily Wong (and moderator Kimberly King Parsons) at the Portland Book Festival, Miller Gallery at the Portland Art Museum, 1119 SW Park Ave., 503-227-2583, literary-arts.org. 12:45 pm-1:45 pm Saturday, Nov. 5. $15-$25 adults, $5 Arts for All, military servicemembers, veterans and 17 and under free. Gunty will make two more appearances at the Portland Book Festival on Nov. 5 (full schedule at literary-arts.org/ bio/tess-gunty/).