Asian Fusion at Bites Restaurant in Forest Grove, Oregon

One of the things I love about the Portland, Oregon metro area is that, it has a plethora of awesome food. Even better is that you don’t have to go into the heart of Portland to find great food because the smaller cities and towns around the area have some great food options as well. Bites Restaurant in Forest Grove is one such place.

Bites is an Asian Fusion Restaurant that sources a good portions of its ingredients and products locally. They get their meat from local Carlton Farms in Carlton, Oregon and their on-tap brews from area breweries. Such a great example of community businesses supporting each other.

This menu has a bit of everything; from pasta and ramen, to burgers and fish options; most having notes of Asian flavor; from kimchi to tempura and everything in between. However, although the menu is a fusion of a lot of Asian-American flavors , there are some Mexican and Italian influences and flavors, all combining to create some very tasty options.

This time around we ordered 3 menu items to share. Let go from my least favorite (still good though) to my favorite.

We order two small plates as the menu calls them, the first being the the Classic Gyoza. This small dumpling is filled with pork and pan fried. The skin was nice and thin and the filling was flavorful; there was just the right amount of filling. The Gyoza sauce that comes on the side was not my favorite thing, as it has a off putting after flavor. The dumpling were good without it.

We also order the K-Town tacos with the kabli beef as our protein choice. This dish has two soft yellow corn tortillas with kalbi beef, lettuce onions, tomatoes (which I had omitted), jalapeños and a aioli with a side of Beer Fries. When I saw this dish, it looked a bit dry and I thought I was going to need some sauce to add to the top like I do most of my tacos, but no. This taco needed nothing but for me to eat it. The beef was tender and seasoned and grilled very well; the veggies balanced the meat out and made it filling and the aioli bound it all together. And those beer fries… let’s just say, I am glad they have those as a separate small plate item because I can definitely eat a plate of those alone.

The second small plate item we ordered and by far my favorite menu item so far (I haven’t tried everything yet, but I will at some point) are the Dynamite Nachos. These are corn tortilla chips with tempura shrimp, chunky Pico De Gallo guacamole, cheese and aioli. Now I have a sensitivity to tomatoes so I usually will have them removed from my dishes, but you can not remove tomatoes from Pico De Gallo of course, so I just left it and I am glad I did. So fresh and tasty especially with the chunky avocado. The shrimps were tender and yummy, but the thing that brought the whole dish together was the aioli. The aioli was like a sweet chili sauce that elevated all the flavors and made this menu item number one in my book. These are the best restaurant nachos I have had, dethroning my long time favorite Old Chicago’s Italian Nachos.

Overall, if you happen to be in the Portland, Oregon metro area and you are looking for good food outside of the hustle and bustle of the major city, check out the surrounding smaller towns in the area. You could be missing out on some beautiful food gems like Bites in Forest Grove otherwise.