Haitian Cart Tap Tap Cuisine Just Opened Its First Restaurant in Portland | Eater Portland

"I first encountered Tap Tap Cuisine as a popular Haitian food cart on N Williams; it opened its first standalone restaurant on Saturday, October 19 at 3434 NE Sandy Boulevard. Owner Dieuson Alix, who grew up in Haiti watching his mother rise between 1 and 3 a.m. to prepare food to sell (sometimes walking nearly 70 miles between neighborhoods), started the cart in September 2023 and expanded into the permanent restaurant so he could build something bigger for his family, culture, and community; his mother now helps cook alongside him. The permanent space offers a full indoor dining room (the original cart will remain open) and a larger menu that includes Creole fried chicken, bouyon (beef or goat soup), and diri kole ak legim (jasmine rice with red beans and eggplant), while the original cart served fried plantains, pwason fri (fried fish), and legumes with goat meat. To start, I recommend bannann peze — fried plantains shaped into little cups cradling griot or shrimp and spicy pikliz — as a shareable; entrees like grilled snapper arrive with legume and mushroom-infused black rice studded with lima beans. Tap Tap is open from 4 to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, and Alix says, "We want to be able to share a part of our culture that social media usually doesn’t talk about," showing that he hopes to present a fuller picture of Haiti and Haitians." - Rebecca Roland