Portland isn’t like New York, where you have a lot of places open 24 hours. But Lúc Lác is open until midnight on weeknights, and until 4 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. It’s a very nice, cozy, modern family-run Vietnamese restaurant and bar with great recipes.
My favorite dish is the combination vermicelli bowl. Vermicelli bowls are called bún, and the combination bún comes with grilled shrimp, grilled chicken, barbecued pork, and fried rolls on top. My favorite part is the fried roll—I don’t know what’s in the stuffing, but it has a sweet and salty flavor and nice texture. I eat Vietnamese food a lot, and Lúc Lác makes the best bún, hands down. The food at Sardine Head is Mediterranean-inspired, with a really nice selection of cured fish that they serve with bread and French cultured butter and salt. There are pickle-y things, and snacks like deviled eggs and baby-corn elotes. The wine program is headed up by a guy named Simon Lowry, who I think is kind of a genius. His sense of hospitality is also really spot-on, and he curates a really nice, comfortable experience, without making anything feel stuffy or over the top. He’s really smart with flavors and with wine, and is just an encyclopedia.
