Neon-Splashed Bar the Houston Blacklight Launches Weekend Brunch | Eater Portland

"Since it opened a couple of months ago, I’ve watched Portlanders flock to Thomas and Mariah Pisha-Duffly’s psychedelic new bar, the Houston Blacklight, for playful cocktails, slushies, and shots and Quebec French–inflected dishes like French onion ramen. Tomorrow the team behind Gado Gado and Oma’s Hideaway will introduce brunch service here, hoping to carry on the legacy of weekend brunch that the building’s predecessor, Night Light Lounge, was known for. A few of the bar’s popular dishes — the pull-apart sausage milk bread and mapo tofu gravy fries — will crossover onto the brunch menu, and they’ll be joined by new offerings like five-spice apple fritters served with Jorinji miso caramel, shrimp benedict smothered in terasi hollandaise, and kimchi hash with an optional add-on of char siu burnt ends. As Mariah Pisha-Duffly says, “It’s really fun that Blacklight can be a place for things like this.” Beverage director Em Warden has also created brunch-exclusive cocktails such as the “Disco Nap” (rum, Jägermeister cold brew, cinnamon, whipped cream, served hot or iced), the “Kimchi Mary” (served with or without shrimp), and the “Cloud Chaser” (an absinthe and pistachio cocktail topped with fluffy egg white). Brunch will be available Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., and unlike the bar’s evening hours, minors will be allowed." - Janey Wong