At Privet European Food and Bakery in Salem, you’ll find far more than imported goods and deli meats, especially if you visit on a Sunday around noon. This is when owner Fakhritdin Tokhataev makes a huge batch of Uzbek-style plov — a spiced pilaf of rice, onions, carrots, garbanzo beans and lamb — in an outdoor kitchen outside his store. It’s a favorite meal of many people from former Soviet republics, including those who have immigrated to Oregon like the Tokhataevs.
Cooked in an authentic kazan — a type of wok — over an open-fire stove that Tokhataev built himself, steam billows out as the air becomes fragrant with plov. It mingles with the smoky scent of succulent lamb and chicken shashlik (kebabs) that his son Firdavs grills next to him.
Tempting anyone who can see or smell it, plov waits for no one when it’s ready — and there’s usually a line of customers that runs out the door each week, so arrive early if you plan to go. Here are even more ways to experience plovs and other Slavic specialties around the state.
Where to Find Slavic Markets and Cafes
Many Russian-speaking immigrants in and around Portland’s sizable community are refugees from the former Soviet Union and the post-Soviet era republics. Not all live in the city, including the Old Believers — a persecuted group of Orthodox Russians — that came to the Woodburn area in the 1960s because of the similarity of the farmland in the Willamette Valley to their own lands at home. Many immigrants rely on small Eastern European markets and bakeries like Privet to supply warm traditional meals, dumplings and breads, as well as special imports that keep Slavic culture alive in Oregon.
If you’d like to try your hand at making plov or sampling some Eastern European market specialties, check out Southeast Portland’s Euro Food Market, Izobilie Euro Foods and the Roman Russian Market, which has been open for at least two decades and serves plov and shashlik. Inside the food store, don’t miss the Russian blini (crepes) or desserts at the Rough Russian Cafe, where you’ll hear regulars sharing news in Russian; it’s open every day from breakfast to late at night.
At the markets, you’ll always find goods like strong Russian tea, candies, condiments, dried and canned fish, herbal remedies, and freezers with bags of frozen dumplings. In deli cases stuffed with every kind of sausage and smoked meat imaginable, as well as bakery displays filled with beautiful cakes, you can select specialties for a picnic.
Where to Find Slavic Restaurants and Food Carts
Not all Slavic food in Oregon is served out of outdoor kitchens and deli cases. Portland’s award-winning Kachka features foods from the many former Soviet republics in a lively fine-dining atmosphere and even has a small market and deli, Kachka Lavka, upstairs. Warm and inviting Domek in Eugene features the cuisines of Eastern Europe from a Northwest perspective, such as chilled borscht with heirloom tomatoes or a local spin on chicken Kyiv. Hatta Ukrainian Cuisine in Wood Village — just west of Troutdale — offers a traditional slice of Ukrainian life with borscht and a hot-food bar full of stuffed cabbage, cutlets and meat pies.
Food carts are another excellent way to try Slavic cuisine. Taste of Old Poland, in the Portland State University farmers market, features pierogies and Polish sausage, while the Pelmeni Pelmeni food cart — with locations at the Hawthorne Asylum Food Carts and Oak Tree Station — has delightful mini pelmeni filled with beef, chicken, potato or cheese.
South of Portland, From Russia With Love is a food cart with locations in Oregon City, Canby and Aurora. It features giant fried piroshky with many choices of fillings, and the cabbage salad with jalapenos is a must-try. The Pierogi Place in Woodburn features handmade pierogies, dumplings and its own creation, the piroshky-dough taco.
If you’re elsewhere in the state, you can find Big Ski’s Pierogies food truck in Bend. Sample traditional and fusion offerings like the Pollo Del Fuego with chicken, cheese, tomatoes and serrano chilis. Southern Oregon’s Julek’s Polish Kitchenette in Phoenix — which was resurrected out of the ashes of the Almeda Fire in 2020 — serves Polish meatballs and goulash, authentic pierogies with traditional fillings and some of the best Polish sausage you will find in Oregon.
