| Javelina | |
|---|---|
| Restaurant information | |
| Owner(s) |
|
| Chef | Alexa Numkena-Anderson |
| Food type | Indigenous |
| City | Portland |
| County | Multnomah |
| State | Oregon |
| Country | United States |
Javelina is a pop-up restaurant in Portland, Oregon, United States.[1] Chef Alexa Numkena-Anderson and her husband Nicholas Numkena-Anderson launched the business in November 2023, initially serving meals at Morchella in northeast Portland's Sabin neighborhood. Javelina features pre-colonial and post-colonial cuisine such as tacos with frybread. It is the city's only Native American restaurant, as of 2023.
Description
editThe pop-up restaurant Javelina serves pre-colonial and post-colonial cuisine. The menu includes frybread tacos with beef chili, shredded cheese, salsa, and sour cream, as well as potato soup with bacon, corn and green chilis. The powwow (or pow wow) burger is a beef patty with American cheese, lettuce, and onion between two pieces of frybread.[2] It also has "tombstone sauce", which mixes ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard, Secret Aardvark hot sauce, and Hatch green chiles.[3] According to Street Roots, the Three Sisters Baked Potato is "a nod to the Indigenous method of farming beans, corn and squash together so they grow in harmony". The dish has roasted sweet potato with butternut squash, cranberries, herbs, refried hominy, quinoa, white beans, and maple chard butter. Javelina also serves huckleberries, Sonoran hot dogs, and frybread with cinnamon, sugar, and honey.[2]
Javelina's logo depicts a rainbow-colored javelina, a pig-like ungulate.[2]
History
editJavelina was launched by chef Alexa Numkena-Anderson (Cree, Hopi, Skokomish, and Yakama) and her husband Nicholas Numkena-Anderson, who manages front-of-house operations. The restaurant's menu reflects her Indigenous and Mexican heritage. The restaurant's first meal was served at Morchella, in northeast Portland's Sabin neighborhood, on November 12, 2023.[2][4] Javelina sold out of food on the first day and during multiple subsequent pop-ups through the end of the year. The business is among several Indigenous-owned and operated restaurants in the Pacific Northwest serving Native American cuisines in recent years, and has been described as Portland's only Native American restaurant.[2]
Javelina has been a vendor at the Indigenous Marketplace.[5] In 2024, Javelina was featured on Oregon Public Broadcasting's food series Superabundant.[6]
Reception
editOregon Public Broadcasting has said that Javelina "blends Indigenous comfort foods and non-colonial ingredients creating a uniquely Indigenous fine dining experience".[7] Andrea Damewood included Javelina in the Portland Mercury's overview of the "best bites" from restaurants and pop-ups in Portland in 2023. She said, "The whole menu is great, but the Pow Wow burger is the stand out for me", adding that the burger's frybread "elevates the decadence without going over the top".[3]
References
edit- ^ "Javelina is bringing Indigenous cuisine to Portland". Oregon Public Broadcasting. Archived from the original on 2024-05-29. Retrieved 2024-09-11.
- ^ a b c d e "Javelina, Portland's only Native American restaurant, is slinging frybread to eager crowds". Street Roots. Archived from the original on 2024-05-14. Retrieved 2024-09-11.
- ^ a b Damewood, Andrea. "Best Bites From Portland Restaurants in 2023: Tuna Toast You Can Share (But Won't) and French Onion Soup That Lives Rent Free in Our Heads". Portland Mercury. Archived from the original on 2024-05-27. Retrieved 2024-09-11.
- ^ Jackson-Glidden, Brooke (2023-11-15). "New Portland Pop-Up Javelina Is an Eclectic Portrait of Past and Present Native Cuisine". Eater Portland. Retrieved 2024-09-11.
- ^ "The Best Things the Eater Portland Team Ate This Week". Eater Portland. 2024-05-17. Archived from the original on 2024-05-24. Retrieved 2024-09-11.
- ^ "Superabundant dispatch: Sichuan style fiddleheads, a shiny new episode and this week's news nibbles". Oregon Public Broadcasting. Archived from the original on 2024-04-07. Retrieved 2024-09-11.
- ^ Frybread tacos and Indigenous cuisine with Portland’s Javelina pop-up. Retrieved 2024-09-11 – via www.opb.org.
