Portland’s 2019 Eater Award Winners - Eater Portland
"Thanksgiving, in many cases, involves a menu of favorites attributed to particular family members: Mom’s stuffing, dad’s mashed potatoes, grandma’s caramel stick buns. It’s an intimate look into a family, the composite meal that speaks to history and lineage, without the pomp and circumstance of the world away from the table. The menu at Matta, a Vietnamese cart on Alberta, similarly serves as a family tree for co-owner Richard Le. On Sundays, he serves an omelet his mother made for him as a kid. On Fridays, he makes his grandmother’s bà nội, steak marinated in fish sauce and poured over fries. And throughout the week, he and Sophia Le serve homey, Vietnamese cooking straight out of the Le cookbook: caramely thit kho, pork belly in a sweet bath of broth; crackly-chicken-skin-topped congee with a lifetime’s supply of alliums; Đà Lạt fried chicken, marinated in fish sauce and served with a colorful slaw. It feels as intimate as a family dinner, served out a food cart by an undeniably cool couple. With the Matta-Jojo collaboration opening this week within cocktail bar Lulu, the Les remain the ones to watch into 2020." - Brooke Jackson-Glidden
