Pono Farms & Fine Meats: Soul Kitchen

Saturday, October 11, 2014

Amanda Benson, GoLocalPDX Contributor

Photo Courtesy of Pono Soul Kitchen

There seems to be an overabundance of Portland-produced meat lately. Go into a local restaurant and you’ll find that most charcuterie plates include Olympic Provisions salumis, or steaks butchered by Laurelhurst Market.

True, there’s nothing really wrong with that, and both purveyors create a quality product for others to enjoy, but why should it be that those are seemingly the only brands hitting the tables lately? Sometimes having the same charcuterie set over and over feels a little ordinary.

Enter: new meat. Pono Farms; mainly a pork-and-beef operation in Bend, Ore., has branched out from farm -- to butcher shop -- to table. Many Portlanders know Pono Farms from the Portland Farmer’s Market, or from trips to the Pono butcher shop in Bend.

Now see what else they have in store.

Located next to the Hollywood Theatre on NE Sandy Boulevard, Soul Kitchen boasts both a meat-centric dinner spot and a retail butcher shop next door that prepares sandwiches for lunch using their own deli meats.

The interior of Soul Kitchen is decorated in typical “Portland-industrial-chic” complete with the holy trinity of modern decor: wood, cement, metal. One thing that stands out, however, is the completely open kitchen. Diners are encouraged to talk with the line cooks, engaging with them from the long wood bar.

Completing my meal, I realize that their food knocks it out of the park as well.

Soul Kitchen Sea Urchin

The sea urchin (uni) special of the day was presented as a simple, precious thing. A small glass with layers of bright uni and soy skim, placed on crushed ice, inside a bright purple, and very spiky, sea urchin shell. The shell itself prompted a different sensory trigger with the dish, allowing me to get a whiff of the ocean, but taste the smoky sweet uni that was once inside. Soy skim was a genius touch, making the dish taste like a savory custard.

Because Soul Kitchen provides its own meat, you can bet the meatballs are unbelievably good. They make meatballs exciting.

Ginger and mushrooms are in the mix of ever-so-soft ground pork. My fork didn't bounce back as I tucked into this dish. The mashed potatoes had a hint of sweet miso complementing the pork wonderfully. Don’t overlook the bok choy that added color to the dish and also invigorated the tongue with its bitter flavor, making a very simple dish of meatballs and mash much more complex and thoughtful.

Soul Kitchen’s carpaccio was also a highlight, with its thin veils of sliced, delicate waygu beef. Raw beef is a huge focal point at Soul Kitchen: it's served "nigiri style" over a strip of rice. The aforementioned carpaccio is served in a warm marinade with ginger and garlic, and the finely chopped beef tartare comes with a Pono Farms’ chicken egg yolk front and center.

The Pono Farms raw beef is also used with sushi rolls, where it's placed on top of their gyu maki roll, complete with tempura-fried trumpet mushrooms, garlic chips and asparagus.

The Best Meat

The beef, if you can believe it, has the exact texture of raw tuna - meaty and soft. No strings of meat were caught between the teeth and there wasn't a struggle or tearing effort to take bites. These were morsels of beef in every true sense of the word. The secret to their meat would have to be the time it took to create the beef and pork.

Owners Shin and Ted Nakato created Soul Kitchen after painstaking effort to breed their pigs and cattle, generation upon generation, to produce the best marbling and taste they could. No insane hormones or bulked-up power feed. Just grass, hay, and time.

The best example of their scrupulous attention to detail is with the sizzling platter of pork rib eye. It is a sensory overload, cooked to a beautiful pink middle, with house-made ginger apple sauce and baked apricots. Tasting the sweetness of the pork and its nutty, soft fat marbled throughout, the sides of fruit become suggestions rather than necessities.

The pork rib eye is, without a doubt, magnificent.

As most things in Portland go, the chatter about outstanding cuisine spreads like wildfire. There is no doubt in my mind that at Soul Kitchen, with as much heart as they put into their product and food, there will soon be that hour-long wait for a table that I dread.

Amanda Benson received an MFA in nonfiction in California before heading to New York to study at the French Culinary Institute. She has worked in kitchens in both Brooklyn and Portland. She continues her education by eating and writing about food.

Banner Photo Credit: Pono Soul Kitchen