Poke Bowl is offered at Āina Kauai Style Grille at the 9th Street Village Pod.

The Patio at 9th Street Village has a fun vibe, and it’s now home to four food carts and the Bevel Craft Brewing taproom. But even before the DIY Cave and Griffin Co-working moved in, the area was a place of creativity and community. Those who have been in Bend awhile will remember that the site was previously Packit Liquidators. The funky scrapyard was a source for many a sculptor or builder looking for recycled wood or metal.

While it’s a coincidence that the DIY Cave followed Packit in this space, the creative community vibe is still present. The 9th Street Village area is dedicated to creating a community powered by hard work and heart. The DIY cave offers classes in making arts and crafts. Welding, forging steel, woodworking and jewelry are some of the courses they offer with projects from cutting boards to fire pits. There is even an outdoor space to build tiny homes and other large projects.

Griffin Co-working is also part of the 9th Street Village, offering remote workspaces for those who need an office away from home.

Of course, it was the community area, sharing food and drink, with four food carts and Bevel Craft Brewing Taproom that brought me to the Patio at 9th Street Village. This lovely, spacious courtyard has a quiet, relaxed feel. Tables made of barrels, steel fire tables, and Adirondack chairs were built or forged at the DIY Cave.

Nosh Street Food

Nosh Street Food serves, as its name implies, small plates. But it’s not your everyday street food. For example, they have a different take on street corn. Rather than picking up a messy cob covered in ingredients, Chef Kevin Allen cuts the roasted kernels off the cob. Some of the more roasted kernels have a nutty flavor among the smokey sweet corn. Queso Fresco cheese and cilantro, and lime wedges lighten the sweetness of the corn. Chili lime salt gives it a slight kick. In all, it’s simple, delicious, and enough for a side dish for two. I’ll be going back for more soon.

Nosh offers three different sliders: the Ugly Pig, which has smoked pulled pork, brisket with horseradish and a Reuben slider. I chose the Reuben with housemade corned beef piled on a Big Ed’s rye slider bun. Melted Swiss, sauerkraut and thousand island dressing give the spiced corned beef a cheesy, creamy balance. It was small but filling. Sliders are $5 each or 3 for $12.

On a hot day, like the day I went, the watermelon salad was refreshing. It seemed to have the right ingredients — spiced with peppery arugula, pine nuts, cheese and drizzled with balsamic vinegar. Still, it didn’t come together for me. Perhaps it was the chocolate mint as a chocolate flavor doesn’t work with watermelon for my palate. Others who ordered seemed to enjoy it though.

Āina Kauai Style Grill

Āina’s Poke Bowl, pronounced EYE’-nah, was close to an authentic poke experience. The tuna is marinated in a sweet unagi sauce then piled on white rice with edamame, cucumbers, avocado, pickled daikon radishes and mild kimchi. The bowl is based on the poke that Chef Ian Vidinha ate growing up on Kauai. Vidinha explained that he added lettuce to the bowl after so many customer requested it. Actually, poke bowls are a new take on traditional poke. In Hawaii, poke is simply the marinated fish eaten alone. Rice and kimchi are typically served with every meal.

The Āina Poke Bowl is topped with two sauces — a wasabi aioli and a creamy sriracha sauce. The combination of the salty, sweet brown unagi sauce, the creamy aioli sauce and the slight spice in the sriracha sauce give the bowl a full flavor. The sauces are also used in other menu items like Poke Nachos and an Ahi Katsu burger. The cart occasionally offers a “sushi burrito.” Using a large sheet of nori as the wrap, Vidinha describes it as a giant sushi roll. Āina also has pork and chicken for the eaters who don’t want sushi.

Southern Accent Po Boys

Chef John Morris grew up in Mobile, Alabama, shrimping, crabbing and fishing on the Gulf Coast. An hour and a half away from New Orleans, he was passionate about the food and learned to make the classic dishes from his family and chefs in New Orleans.

Morris explained that a Po Boy is pretty much anything you put on a French roll. His top seller is the chicken Po Boy, but I tried the Shrimp Po Boy. At first glance, it looked heavy and fried, but I was wrong. The shrimp is lightly breaded in cornmeal and flour that was neither greasy nor heavy. The red sauce was not a buffalo sauce. It was a delicate, tasty Louisiana rémoulade with 27 spices. Morris’ mayonnaise-based sauce rémoulade is mild. Louisiana hot sauce is available at the cart.

Morris brings in large, juicy shrimp caught wild back home on the Gulf Coast. Fresh lettuce and thinly sliced tomato lined the Big Ed’s soft French roll. The sweetness from the shrimp and the sauce played against the fresh vegetables in the delicious local bun.

An alligator skull sits on the shelf of the Southern Accent food truck. But the alligator is more than a mascot; it’s also an item on the menu. Morris urged me to give it a try and served me a sample. Though I expected it to be chewy or tough, it was tender and moist with a flavor similar to chicken, (doesn’t everything exotic taste like chicken?) crossed with fish. Something was satisfying about biting into the beast.

Morris explained the story behind his red beans and rice. In the South, Monday was laundry day. The women would start the red beans and rice in the morning so that it would be ready by dinnertime after a long, hard, busy day. Morris starts with his roux, which is cooked until it’s the color of chocolate. He then adds Cajun-spiced red beans cooked with smokey Andouille sausage. It’s served on long-grain rice with a cornbread waffle. The tender beans are an authentic Southern flavor.

Taqueria El Nava

Unlike its unique neighbors, El Nava is a typical taco truck. They offer tacos, burritos, tamales and plates. There is a vast variety of meat choices for their street tacos, ranging from the usual pork carnitas to lingua. I chose a carnitas taco and a chorizo taco, filled with an onion and cilantro mix typical of street tacos. El Nava’s carnitas was big chunks of pork.

If you are a fan of green bell peppers, you will probably like El Nava. The chorizo taco is cooked with green peppers, which I haven’t seen before. What’s more typical is the green peppers in the steak fajitas plate, which tasted fine, but the meat was a bit tough.

There’s plenty of room to social distance at the 9th Street Village. A flower garden makes the area feel light, cheery and inviting. It’s a lovely place to hang out and grab a beer from Bevel Craft Brewing and grab a tasty bite. The picnic tables are large enough to stay 6 feet from others while eating “together.”

(Editor’s note: The chef at Āina Kauai Style Grill is Ian Vidinha. In the original article, his name was spelled incorrectly. The Bulletin regrets the error.)