3 hot Seattle-area pop-ups serve up juicy Turkish lamb kebabs, whole Singapore chili crabs and tacos with a twist

Seattle’s food pop-ups kicked off during the pandemic with excellent bakeries, a diverse secret pizza scene, and chefs hurling dishes at breweries across the city.

The pop-up scene serves as a testing ground for budding restaurateurs. This allows you to test recipes with little pressure and refine a business model before investing money in equipment. The meals from the pop-ups in this week’s Neighborhood Eats are some of the best I’ve eaten in Seattle. Fortunately, the owners have all the restaurants in their future visions.

Hamdi

Check Hamdi’s Instagram for pop-up times and places.

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On a Saturday, Chef Berk Güldal grilled wings and kebabs on a spit over charcoal under a blue tent, occasionally glancing sideways at a whole lamb spinning over an apple wood fire and dripping fat and juices into the flames below.

Güldal was cooking for one of Hamdi’s Turkish food pop-ups on the street in front of Obec Brewing in Ballard. The chef and his partner Katrina Schult have experience in three Michelin-starred restaurants and have been serving kebabs, kokoreç sandwiches and whole roasted lamb in Seattle since July with plans to open a gourmet Turkish restaurant in Ballard next spring.

Güldal grew up in Turkey, attended a cooking school there and worked in one of the oldest restaurants in Istanbul, where he learned traditional Turkish cooking techniques. Upon graduation, Güldal moved to New York City and worked in the city’s best restaurants, including the acclaimed Eleven Madison Park.

After a few years, Güldal moved to California to work as the sous chef at the three Michelin-starred restaurant SingleThread Farm. There he met Schult, the dining room captain of the restaurant, who had helped open SingleThread in 2016 after working at The French Laundry.

Frustrated with the constant closings during the pandemic, Güldal left SingleThread to cook private dinners. And in March, Güldal and Schult brought their Turkish spices to Bainbridge Island, where they hosted a pop-up as part of the Hitchcock restaurant’s guest cooking series. They served 1,800 people in three days. Excited with its success and impressed with the area’s natural beauty, they moved to Seattle to start a pop-up on traditional Turkish food – something Güldal says he has not seen good examples anywhere in the US

“I wanted to make something of my own culture,” says Güldal. I really wanted to represent Turkish food here because people don’t know what real Turkish food is. ”

I haven’t eaten a lot of Turkish food, but Hamdis Kebabs ($ 20) were the best I’ve ever eaten – juicy lamb with fat, lightened by tomato and onion salad, wrapped in homemade lavash (flatbread). Güldal only uses male lambs in his cooking, which he believes are less feral than female lambs (most restaurants in the US use both). He chops the lamb ribs for the kebabs “for hours and hours” with a large knife – meat grinder, albeit more efficient, crushes the meat and robs it of its juice, he says. And he cooks it medium-rare: You wouldn’t desecrate a dry-aged steak by cooking it through, so why a kebab? “For me, kebab is like a nice steak,” says Güldal.

The kokoreç sandwich ($ 28) made with lamb sweetbreads and entrails was surprisingly tasty (I like some giblets but usually can’t handle the spark of the intestines). The sweetbread had the pleasant woody taste of porcini mushrooms and any bitterness in the meat merged with the aromas of cumin and green peppers.

I couldn’t try the whole roast lamb because it wasn’t ready when I went to the pop-up, but my colleague Jenn Smith vouches for its deliciousness.

Güldal and Schult will be in Turkey until November 6th to explore food and culture as they prepare for the opening of their restaurant which will elevate Hamdi’s food to a high standard and pair it with wines and excellent service.

Güldal says pop-ups will start again a week or two after they return from their trip.

duality

4 p.m. – sold out Friday-Sunday. Currently residing at Underbelly, 119 First Ave. S., Seattle. You can find updated menus, opening times and locations on Dualidad’s Instagram.

The tacos from Dualidad feel familiar at first. The chorizo ​​tastes like what you would eat in a good taco truck, and the ancho chile adobo chicken is roasted and comforting.

But then you notice the twists and turns – the crispy piece of charred broccolini on the chorizo ​​taco ($ 4) and the Layer of jammy Schmaltz and the exceptionally deep poultry flavor of the chicken taco ($ 4), said by chef Lucas Portillo is made by marinating in Shio Koji, a fermented Japanese paste.

Portillo founded Dualidad in February as a pop-up in the Underbelly Bar in Pioneer Square with his fiancée Marissa Myers. He shies away from the word “fusion” when describing his food – it’s more of a nuanced combination of traditional Mexican flavors and ingredients and techniques that he learned as a chef in Seattle.

Raised in San Diego, Portillo says he was so surrounded by fellow Chicanos that he didn’t have to think about his dual identities as Mexican and American. “I never had to think about what it meant to me because I just lived in it,” he says.

But when he moved to Seattle in 2014, he was removed from that community. Now he wants to explore this “dualidad” inside himself with his food by making tacos with influences from the cultures of America.

Portillo has experience of butchering by working in places like The Shambles and that shows in their excellent homemade chorizo.

His San Diego roots can be seen in his “Cali T” Carne Asada Taco made from fried potatoes ($ 4.50; first cooked in vinegar and frozen for maximum crispness) and a crusty layer of cheese on the tortilla, a dish inspired by french fries is -packaged California burritos that he ate as a “stupid stoner kid”. “For me, that’s nostalgia on my plate,” he says.

It’s one of the most longing tortilla-wrapped bites I’ve ever had.

Portillo says he’ll be at Underbelly at least until the end of 2021 and wants to get a food truck and restaurant in the future.

let’s eat

4-7 p.m. Thursday-Saturday or Friday-Sunday. Check Marimakan’s Instagram for weekly menus and hours of operation.

Getting the Singapore-style Marimakan Crabhouse-style Dungeness Crabs takes planning and dedication. The store only takes pre-orders. The crabs are delivered within a wide timeframe (4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.). And each crab (up to 2 pounds) costs around $ 90, which is adjusted weekly based on the market price.

But it’s a fabulous use of your time and money. The black pepper crab is an extreme sensory experience: loaded with two ice cream scoops of black pepper, it burns the mouth and heats the body, while it delights with a butter sauce rich in crab flavor.

The chilli crab is sweet and a little smoky, made with sambal, fish sauce, and ketchup, the sauce is so good you’ll want to soak up every drop with a side of fried mantou buns ($ 12 for an order of six). )

The owner, Virginia Rachel Ranti, says the ultimate goal is a stationary place where people can eat crabs fresh from the pot. She says you should reheat the crabs for now by placing the aluminum container they come in directly on an electric stove or by steaming them in a saucepan.

Ranti was born in Jakarta, but grew up in Singapore, where she and her grandma visited Hawker Center every weekend and learned the region’s cuisine through osmosis. She founded Marimakan Seattle in August after being laid off from a catering company and serves Singaporean and Indonesian hawker center dishes like Hainanese chicken rice and laksa (spicy). curry Noodle soup), which she still sells occasionally with crabs.

Jade Yamazaki Stewart:
jstewart@seattletimes.com; Jade Yamazaki Stewart is an intern with the Seattle Times. You can reach him at jstewart@seattletimes.com or on Instagram at @jade_vs_food.