Lil Dame

Best new restaurant in PDX! This is exactly how I love to eat and the staff makes you feel right at home! We loved everything we had, including their selection of hot sauces! Food: 10/10 would order anything with roasted elk. I got the sun bowl with wild rice, giant creamy scarlet runner beans, delicada squash, arugula, roasted elk, and pickled red onions. We also got the elk frybread topped with arugula, pickled red onions, and blueberry bbq sauce that cuts through the richness! For dessert, we had the fluffiest blue cornbread cake and maple butter! Drinks: 10/10 Try their First Foods Cider with apple, cranberry, and sumac (my favorite!) and if you’re looking for something else, the coffee is delicious! The coffee is from Bison coffeehouse, another great Native-owned business in Portland. Service: 10/10 We were greeted by Chef Alexa and seated within a couple minutes. Both owners checked in on us. Ambiance: 10/10 The restaurant is gorgeous and cozy, full of beautiful Native art and momentos of Chef Alexa’s family and heritage. We’re incredibly lucky to have them in Portland. Take your people!

I would say the food was 4/5, our focaccia was a bit burnt, the cesar salad was good, but nothing to write home about, and our pasta was overcooked. The service was not so good on our end. Everything took very long to come out and parties that arrived after us received their dinner first. We even saw our server deliver our pasta to the party next to us mistakenly, subsequently apologize profusely to them for the mistake, and then a few minutes later bring us the same plate and only said "here's your pasta." No acknowledgement of the inconvenience to us, just to them. It felt weird and a bit rude. We eat out a lot and are rarely made to feel that way in Portland. We really like the restaurant space they use and look forward to trying the other pop ups in there.

Was so lucky to attend the collab between matta and lil dame. Food and service was unmatched. Can’t wait to attend other events at lil dame!

Javelina is the best new restaurant in the Portland area. The Elk fry bread and cornbread are outstanding. My wife had the Sun bowl with Elk.

Service at Lil Dame is awful. Went for Valentine’s Day for the La Damita pop-up. First my table was delayed an hour twice, all done via text. Second when we arrived the host mumbled us towards community seating which I did not reserve. Then the ridiculous community seating table had us sitting side by side, terrible for my neck. After sitting for 10 minutes without any service we had to call the waiter over to take drink orders. Then we had to wait another 10 minutes for him to take food orders, which was absurd considering it was a set menu. I had to ask for water glasses. At the end of the meal the dessert order was wrong and the mains were bland. Then when the check comes around, and I give my card the waiter mumbles something, the check comes back and I’m charged an extra $30~ without any explanation. Avoid this place until they figure it out.

Jewan is a visionary, especially in the vegan food scene. If you have the privilege to catch this DAME/Plant-Based-Papi pop-up, do it! This is some of the best ramen you'll ever have, & from one of the nicest & most hard-working dudes in the business. We are cider-people, so simply having the choice between French, Italian, or Spanish ciders would've sold us, regardless of the food on offer (spoiler: it is all wonderful). Would recommend to anyone, vegan or not; this is about FOOD, & it is DELICIOUS.

First of all, our server was A+. I missed her name unfortunately. The food was fresh, not too heavy, and tasty, with a good variety of both vegetarian and meat options and just the right portions for the price, given the setting and costs nowadays. Overall happy to eat here, and would love to come back with family and friends. The fun part was you can see the kitchen, so we saw them roll our flatbread fresh just for us.:)

I’ve had two of my all time favorite meals here and can’t recommend it enough! (Plus the neighborhood is a delight!)

Alert- this is not Lil Dame Review - le Clown review a pop restaurant that opens only Monday and Tuesday BEST FREAKIN RESTAURANT IN US!! Hamachi strawberries messed w your mind!!! Very complex but his every taste bud except for smell. Shrimp head was mind blowing!!! Well flavored!!! Sauce nicely highlights the flavor of the shrimp head!!! I tried to order more but they ran out in 30 min. I won't write more as every dish we just as good as previous one If you come to le clown, I suggest getting early seating. They are going to run out of dishes. I also noticed that they are slow in out out of dishes as more people come in. It makes sense. They are making edible ART!!! Be patient. This place is worth it!!!!!!

Came for breakfast and had my first Bialy Bird experience. The apricot feta was unbelievably delicious. The sweetness of the jam cut with tangy saltiness of the feta was a perfect combination.

Currently in residence at Lil' Dame, I love what Chef Jewan Manuel, AKA Plant Based Papi, is doing with ramen and related dishes like bao buns. Quite delicious. Our party of 4 tried each of the 3 ramens, got 2 orders of the bao buns and one of the cucumber salad. All beautifully executed. The ramen broth is thick and hearty (a mix of sunflower and hemp seeds, plus kombu, shallots, and lots more) and his house-made noodles are the perfect consistency and chew. No fake meats here, but tofu and creative use of marinated mushrooms. All combined with a thoughtfully curated wine/beer/cider menu. Absolutely with a visit (Friday-Saturday-Sunday night)

I went to the pop up over the weekend. Requested my order be gluten-free and confirmed with the waiter when they dropped the dish. They said yes but after eating a few bites, I caught another error in my meal and they realized they had mixed my dish up with another. I then confirmed they had given me normal noodles in that mix up. They did apologize and comp the dish, but I hope they will take this seriously and ensure all staff know the very stark visual difference between the wheat and gluten-free noodles so that everyone can catch that error as it can (and did) make someone sick.

As Eric has mentioned, this review is for Le Clown that is open in the Lil' Dame place on Mondays and Tuesdays (at the time of this post. Lil' Dame is fine by the way, the space was nice and, if Le Clown makes food THAT good in that space, Lil' Dame is good in my book! Now, about the food... dang!!!! What a surprise. I reserved this place for an impromptu 40th birthday dinner for my partner. I saw that they were service French food, but didn't look that much into it. I'm originally from France and am totally biased toward French cuisine (fortunately, my partner loves it too). I was very pleasantly surprised to see dishes that had hints of French southwestern influence. "Asperge paloise" would mean asparagus from Pau, my small hometown! What?! Lots of duck in the menu (southwest). "Espelette" is a pepper from the Basque region neighboring my hometown of Pau. The cooks John and Maddie, and their staff, did an absolute wonderful job creating flavors that blew our minds. We thought we knew what broccoli would taste like, but when it's smothered in some emulsified epoisse cheese, it's another world. The Foico-Taco was a treat that most people might not be too much into, but having grown up with foie gras, I was all in. I simply had never had it in this sweet and savory way. Same with the boudin noir macaron. I've had my share of blood sausage but not in something that bridges barbecue textures and refined French macaron delicacies in one dish. The bresaola was probably the simplest dish, and it was great as well. One nice surprise too was that the main courses kept on delivering! While the appetizers were full of flavors, interest and novelty, the main dishes continued the trend. The Pojarski de agneu was melt in your mouth delicious, and the duck was just as tender, tasty and complex. The sides for the duck were OK, nice to have but paled a little compared to what they were accompanying. Maybe it was on purpose... though the brioche with foie in it was a nice tool to sop up the juices with. Service was good, though we felt a little left out on the outside of patio. The wine selection is small yet good and the waiter that helped us with wine knows his stuff. The only real issue we had was that the duck took a while to come out, to the point that we wondered if it had been forgotten. It showed up just after we asked about it, and it was delicious enough to make up for it, but as it was getting late, it wasn't enjoyed to its full potential. This also made us not look at the desert list unfortunately. None of this would prevent us from coming back to try this out again, granted it's not cheap! Though this, for once, is a case of you-get-what-you-pay-for. Well done Le Clown!

Service at Lil Dame is awful. Went for Valentine's Day for the La Damita pop-up. First my table was delayed an hour twice, all done via text. Second when we arrived the host mumbled us towards community seating which I did not reserve. Then the ridiculous community seating table had us sitting side by side, terrible for my neck. After sitting for 10 minutes without any service we had to call the waiter over to take drink orders. Then we had to wait another 10 minutes for him to take food orders, which was absurd considering it was a set menu. I had to ask for water glasses. At the end of the meal the dessert order was wrong and the mains were bland. Then when the check comes around, and I give my card the waiter mumbles something, the check comes back and I'm charged an extra $30~ without any explanation. Avoid this place until they figure it out.

Omg, just wonderful. I had some delicious marinated olives for an appetizer including some big ole honkers! jawbreaker size. we followed that with a rabbit risotto that was perfect and a lasagna that turned me left handed. I don't know how to describe it. It was unique and yet classic.