AUTHOR BIO: Mei Chen has worked for nearly a dozen start-ups in as many years, taking her to several West Coast cities. While she’s sure her current day job is permanent, she also has her eye on Carmel.
Before Trap Kitchen had a chef’s counter, cocktails, and a dining room in Portland’s Central Eastside, people lined up outside Eddie Bynum Jr.’s grandmother’s house to buy plates from the kitchen.
Bynum, the Portland rapper known as Mikey Vegaz, has now helped turn that family business into The EAST by Trap Kitchen, a full-service restaurant with Sunday brunch, private dining, and a seven-course tasting menu. His brother Malachi Jenkins founded Trap Kitchen in Los Angeles with Roberto Smith, a former gang rival, and the business expanded into food carts in Portland and beyond.
The EAST gives the brand room to do more. The menu leans into seafood, fire-kissed dishes, and globally influenced cooking, including a signature pineapple presentation. At the chef’s counter, courses draw from Japanese, Caribbean, and Creole flavors, while the bar adds handcrafted cocktails to an experience Bynum says took about two years to build.
The restaurant also continues Trap Kitchen’s emphasis on second chances. Bynum told OPB’s Think Out Loud, “We were all about taking second chances,” describing a hiring approach that has included people who have experienced homelessness, incarceration, and other setbacks. “We give people a chance,” he added.
Cajun corn
That work stretches beyond the restaurant. Bynum helps lead Rose City JAM, a monthly program offering young people basketball, cooking classes, free haircuts, meals, and financial literacy.
Salt and pepper island shrimp
Garlic and herb ribeye
The EAST may be Trap Kitchen’s most polished version yet, but its origin story remains intact: two former rivals building a business together, a family kitchen feeding lines down the block, and Mikey Vegaz using food to create possibilities well beyond the table.
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