Southern Mastermind Maya Lovelace Switches Things Up With a New, Korean-Ish Pop-Up

Maya Lovelace, the chef-owner of celebrated Southern pop-up Mae and (hopefully) soon-to-open Yonder, is adding some Seoul to her classic fried chicken pop-up with the brand-new dinner series Chimaek. The Korean-meets-Southern-American menu will hit Northeast Portland November 7, complete with cheesy rice cakes, soju, and plenty of K-Pop on the stereo.

The four-course dinner, hosted inside Mae’s new digs at Dame, will start with a selection of Southern-style banchan, followed by Korean-ish versions of her three-fat fried chicken, cheesy rice cakes, and sweet corn ice cream. Her banchan ranges from the more traditional to the clearly Appalachian-influenced, with sweet-and-sour pickled radish and baechu (cabbage) kimchi alongside pimento cheese broccoli salad and Mountain Rose apple kimchi. In place of the beloved pimento mac and cheese at her original dinner, the Husk alum is swapping out a cheesy tteokbokki, a Korean rice cake she loads with smoky bacon and mozzarella cheese. Her fried chicken comes in two styles: basted with gochugaru-infused lard, and tossed in a sweet sorghum molasses and bourbon-barrel-smoked soy sauce. For dessert, sweet corn ice cream comes with chewy rice cakes, toasted soybean powder, and wild huckleberries.

The first round of Chimaek dinners will have seatings at 6 and 8:30 p.m. November 7th and 8th, with tickets at a decent $40 a pop. Per usual, Mae tickets will go on sale in one fell swoop at 8 p.m. tomorrow — better sit in front of your computer like you’re buying Daft Punk tickets, because knowing Maya Lovelace pop-ups, these bad boys will sell out fast.

• Mae [Official]
• Mae ticket link [Tock]
• All previous Mae coverage [EPDX]
• All previous Yonder coverage [EPDX]