Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Pause Japanese Bistro

Pause is a food cart located at the Rose City Food Park (NE 52nd and Sandy Blvd) in Portland, Oregon.

There was a substantial period of time in which I did not visit the Rose City Food Park, mainly because there are a ton of food pods in Portland (and the suburbs) and I wanted to give attention to as many as I could. In the back corner of the pod stood another Japanese cart -- but one serving chirashi and currydon options, as opposed to ramen or karaage (fried) chicken.



The chef in the back, Hyeyeon, is from Okinawa. This is basically some of the food she grew up with.

Chirashi (Japanese for "scattered") is basically fish (usually raw), served with vegetables over a bed of hot rice (choice of white or brown rice). At Pause, there is also an option to get the fish seared on the outside. At $8.00, you'll get a large bowl that one hungry individual or two people could enjoy. Be prepared to carb up here; you'll be getting a generous helping of rice.

Six different types of sauces to choose from for your chirashi bowl. I picked the wasabi soy dressing, easily the most popular.


For $1.00 more, you can get an appetizer (i.e. edamame) and a drink.

Simply stunning presentation. So colorful.





The price is kept low likely for food costs; you'll get probably just a handful of cubed tuna with this bowl. Otherwise, you'd probably be spending upwards of $15 to $20 for this.

The tuna was a bright, shiny pink (what it should be), the vegetables fresh, and the brown rice plentiful. The panda unfortunately is no longer used to having a ton of rice with his meal. Yet, the wasabi soy dressing was the shining star: perfect in amount and had this ideal sweet-savory-umami balance. Just a hint of wasabi, nothing overpowering.

I definitely will have to return for the Japanese curry.


Pause is yet another wonderful food cart adding more diversity to the Portland food cart scene! 9/10

No comments:

Post a Comment