Food, sneakers, Portland Trail Blazers basketball and the Oregon sports scene. It’s another episode of Soops & Hoops.
Today, this episode is all about kicks. I sat down with Portland footwear pioneer Mikey Nguyen — co-owner of Index PDX along with Terrance Ricketts — the city’s first sneaker consignment store located in Northwest Portland that specializes in selling rare shoes. That includes unreleased pairs, player edition sneakers made exclusively for NBA and former college stars, precious design samples from Nike and Adidas and other hard-to-find footwear you may have seen on the feet of savvy collectors, celebrities and cultural icons.
Some of the topics we touched on include the influence and importance of sneakers in popular culture and the Rose City’s place in that realm, including:
- How Index PDX got started, how the store operates and how Nguyen and his partner Terrance Ricketts have built the shop into a worldwide destination for sneakerheads and tourists alike.
- How Portland has become “the Silicon Valley of Sneakers” from a design and creation standpoint as well as a world-renowned destination for collectors and influencers in the industry.
- How the growing popularity of sneakers as a fashion statement has become an essential part of popular culture while moving away from athlete endorsement deals to celebrities and fashion influencers who have become the driving force behind today’s most coveted pairs of kicks.
- A rundown of the NBA players and Portland Trail Blazers stars who have become regular customers along with other celebrities who stop into the shop when they swing through Portland.
We talk about all this and more while sitting down at one of Nguyen’s favorite Portland haunts, Utopia Restaurant & Lounge, to try out some of his favorite Vietnamese dishes, including:
- Lẩu Bún bò Huế — The famous spicy beef broth soup that originates from the city of Huế in central Vietnam and features rice noodles, beef shank and sliced pork among other ingredients. What is unique about this dish at Utopia is that you can order it “Lẩu” style, or “family style,” which is great for groups that want to share. It comes as one giant bowl of soup perched on top of a continuous flame and placed on the table along with with plates of garnishes and noodles on the side. Each person can build their own mini bowl of soup with the ladle and add noodles as they see fit, which I had never seen at a Vietnamese restaurant in Portland until I visited this place.
- Cánh gà chiên nước mắm — Vietnamese-style fried chicken wings tossed in fish sauce, garlic and chiles and served with a side of pickled carrots and daikon. These just a different version of the Ike’s Fish Sauce Wings you can get at Pok Pok in Portland. If you have tried those wings and like that flavor profile, you’ll love these ones as well.
- Bò Tái Chanh — A sort of Vietnamese-style steak salad dish featuring thinly-sliced lean raw beef cured in lime juice and mixed with fish sauce, spices and crunchy veggies like cucumber, pickled daikon and carrots as well as refreshing herbs like Thai basil, mint and a handful of crushed roasted peanuts for added texture.
- Tôm Rang Muối — This one is always a crowd-pleaser. It’s just simple deep fried squid, or calamari, tossed in a salt and pepper spice mixture and then combined on the plate with a mix of sautéed sweet onions and jalapeños. Delicious.
If you want to visit Index PDX in order to find a pair of rare sneakers for yourself, or if you plan to visit Utopia and try out any of the dishes we highlighted in this episode, review the items we ordered above and then find out what you need to know before you hit the restaurant and Mikey’s shop, here:
- Utopia Restaurant & Lounge | 1125 NE 82nd Ave, Portland, OR 97220 (Open 9 a.m. - 2:30 a.m. every day)
- Index PDX (Website | Instagram: @indexportland)| 114 NW 3rd Ave, Portland, OR 97209 (Open M-F: 11-6, Sat: 11-7, Sun: 11-5 and they buy and consign sneakers every day)
If you had a chance to catch our first episode, you know the drill. If not, thanks for checking out the show and stick with us as the topics described above are the focus of discussion in this new series from The Oregonian/OregonLive hosted by me, Tim Brown (@timfsbrown), one of the sports editors here for our news organization.
In Soops & Hoops, I’ll be taking you around Portland to different restaurants, starting with some of my favorite Vietnamese spots that specialize in pho, bun and other kinds of regional soups. At the same time, I’ll be talking with guests who are doing big things in Portland’s food scene, folks who cover basketball and the Trail Blazers, the Blazers’ fan community and people working in the footwear industry and Portland’s booming sneaker community.
In case you missed it, our first episode debuted with our own Oregonian/OregonLive restaurant reporter and food critic Michael Russell (@tdmrussell) as we sat down over a bowl of pho at one of Portland’s best Vietnamese eateries, Ha VL. That’s where we talked about two of the Southeast Portland restaurant’s signature dishes — the sea snail noodle soup (Bún Chả Ốc) and the shredded chicken noodle soup (Bún Thang) — before we discussed some of the best places to eat and drink around the Moda Center before taking in a Blazers game.
— Tim Brown, The Oregonian/OregonLive | @timfsbrown
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