Lovely Hula Hands [Portland]

The restaurant, which seats no more than 25 people, is housed in a pink house off of industrial Mississippi street. The warmly decorated dining room draws on vintage Victorian touches that make your experience here feel like home sweet home.

The night starts with a retro cocktail menu that lets you pretend you're at a kitschy tiki bar from the 70s. From there, you will be met with generous portions, cuisine with tropical influences, and ingredients locally sourced from organic farmers. Our crab cakes were decadent and served alongside a pickled cabbage relish that did well to balance out the heavier notes in the dish.

Our entrees included the ground chuck burger w/Tilamook cheddar and bacon, as well as the pumpkin rice w/coconut curry, lime-chili green beans, fried plantains, and grilled prawns. Both of the dishes were very generously portioned and robustly flavored.

We opted to skip out on desserts since the rest of meal was so filling. That night, they had a molten lava cake, praline creme brulee, and espresso panna cotta.

The restaurant doesn't take reservations and the tables filled up around 6:30 on Sunday night. By 7pm, the first seating started to clear out and there were no more people waiting when we left at 7:30.

Lovely Hula Hands is a restaurant that I would frequent time and again for the homemade touches that extend beyond the food to the service and space. I hear they've since moved to a more spacious location, so my pictures may be out of date.

Lovely Hula Hands
4057 N Mississippi Ave
Portland, OR 97227
(503) 445-9910