Wok Charred Cabbage
The Honey Paw

The Honey Paw

78 Middle Street, Portland, 04101, United States Of America

Casual • Noodles • American • Ice Cream


"We were walking to have dinner at another restaurant on Memorial Day, saw the full house at Honey Paw, went in to check the menu out, and decided on the spot to change our plans and grab dinner there instead (they're closed Tuesday-Thursday and we were leaving Portland on Friday). It turned out to be a great decision, and this restaurant should be on the list of anyone visiting town.For starters we shared the halibut crudo, which as you'd expect from a seaport town was amazingly fresh. The sauce had plenty of bite thanks to the Szechuan oil, but also had more complex flavors with the cilantro and turmeric. It was a light and refreshing way to start the meal, and paired well with the sake we had (my partner got the nigori sake cocktail, I got a bottle of the Ozeki Dry sake).Next were the mains, and we were blown away at how intense and flavorful the dishes were. I got the local kelp torchio, which was a phenomenal fusion dish combining Italian pasta with Asian seasoning. The pasta was al dente, and the seasoning was very complex with the parmesan dashi, Szechuan peppercorn, kelp butter, soy hijiki and cured egg yolk.My partner got the khao soi, which she loved (and she has a very high bar for Thai food after spending a lot of time in Bangkok). The coconut curry broth was again intensely flavorful, and the smoked lamb was very tender and offered a different twist to the typical preparation. We drained this bowl down to the bottom.I think we could've walked away at this point feeling great about the meal, but we're suckers for soft serve ice cream and thought we'd give it a try here. We got the sweet cream soft serve topped by cookie crisps and coffee toffee, and if that's not one of the best soft serves we've ever had think an Oreo McFlurry from McDonald's that's 100x higher quality and you get the idea."