Given the Pacific Northwest’s longstanding love affair with teriyaki — specifically, a Korean-American spin on Japanese grilled chicken doused in sweet ginger-garlic sauce — it’s small wonder that culinary mashups have proliferated. In Portland and its suburbs, it’s easy to find teriyaki meat stuffed into hoagie rolls; fried chicken wings slicked in molasses-dark sauce; or heaping plates of chicken alongside phở and khao soi at local Vietnamese and Thai restaurants.
But as far as we can tell, this restaurant in a Northeast 122nd Avenue shopping center is the first and only Portland restaurant to offer the dish on a menu otherwise devoted to South Asian food.
Actually, teriyaki might be the least interesting dish at Portland Teriyaki and Nepali Cafe. The restaurant, which changed ownership in 2023 and has slowly grown its menu’s Nepali side since, serves a straightforward version: generously portioned meat, plain white rice, simple steamed vegetables. Shrug. Like the mock shoji — or Japanese-style sliding door — that rests in the window, it’s a holdover from the restaurant’s previous incarnation, and one you can safely ignore…