Greg and Gabi Quiñónez Denton made a name for themselves as the chefs at the now renowned Argentine-inspired Portland restaurant, Ox. There, they make meats sing and diners smile with food so good, they wrote a book about it. But it’s possible, just maybe, that their new restaurant, SuperBite, is even better.
While in Portland for Feast festival, I was lucky to attend a very long, very successful lunch courtesy of Washington Wine Commission. The premise of the restaurant is one that diners can wrap their head around, and it’s pretty cool in and of itself.
Prix fixe dinners: fun, right? Well, sometimes. Sometimes they’re stodgy, often their price point is a gatekeeper to the less indulgent, or the menus include only a few dishes you actually want, or seem like too much food, not enough or not universally appealing. Enter the Chefs Denton, who wanted to take that concept — small bites — and make them (wait for it) super.
The menu is laid out into three sections: Bites, Plates and Platters. Bites are small, one-person affairs, priced for one portion so it’s easy to imagine a meal cobbled together from a whole line up of these wonderful wonders. Add in a plate or platter and you’ve customized a prix fixe-style, try-everything-without-the-sacrifice meal.
Unlikely to leave the menu ever was a highlight of our meal: “Spaghettios,” made from tubes of excellent pasta cut up into little rings then tossed with Irish butter, Parmesan and fresh truffle. It’s ridiculously good and ridiculously fun to eat.
Flavor combinations sway sophisticated, without sounding too uppity. A tower of Dungeness crab over an onion ring sat nestled in an artichoke purée with a lovely topper of caviar. A puck of salmon ceviche was layered with avocado and a hailstorm of crunchy quinoa for a refreshing, fresh take on the oft-seen menu item. Less beloved by my dining companions was a grilled shiitake mushroom with a miso-porcini marshmallow and sauternes glaze, which married the nearly-never seen sweetness-mushroom combination you didn’t know you were lacking in your life.
For diners who want to get a few bites and then dive into something together, the platters were another highlight of the meal. A whole fried trout was served atop a potato purée in a slightly salty, delicious black bean sauce then crowned with Dungeness crab and shiitake mushrooms. Easy to share and fun to eat, it was spot on in luxurious textures and fresh, very Northwest flavors.
Another highlight were the buttery egg noodles served alongside the pork shoulder platter. While the pork was lovely and the vegetables that accompanied it textural wonders, the noodles were something to write home about. Snappy, stretchy, perfectly cooked noodles were tossed with butter (it’s a theme, I realize in my love for this place) and poppy seeds.
So simple, so perfectly done. And hey, that’s a theme of SuperBite, too.
