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K Town Korean BBQ (Sam Gehrke)

During the worst of lockdown, my decadent, extroverted heart pined for the chance to sit at a restaurant with eight friends, order a mess of food and tear at it with hands and forks, all while drinking with heart and abandon.

And there are just some places more suited to those pursuits than others. You want a place where you’re not going to feel weird about going for it with an extra appetizer for the table or—even better—you’re going to want an all-you-can-eat situation. The more interactive the meal, the more memorable it becomes, whether you’re throwing ingredients into a bubbling hot pot or scooping up spiced chickpeas with injera.

Being vaxxed and recently boosted, I’ve steadily returned to some of my favorite feasts. If you’re among those excited to eat out with a group once more, here are the places you’ll have the most fun doing it.

All-You-Can-Eat Hot Pot at Happy Lamb

3861 SW 117th Ave., Beaverton, 971-238-9798, facebook.com/HappyLambHotPotBeaverton.

I love hot pot, and the best in the metro area is certainly at Happy Lamb in Beaverton. Formerly Little Sheep, this spacious palace of cauldrons is among the stateside outposts of the beloved Chinese chain.

For $28 each, you’re given the run of basically the whole menu. Your choices—be they flavorful meatballs, slices of beef, taro root, etc.—arrive uncooked, on huge platters that your servers wordlessly set up folding tables to accommodate.

The start of a hot pot meal is a frenzy of dipping your meats and vegetables into the central, shared pot’s delicious broth. At Happy Lamb, we recommend a half-and-half split of the pepper-laden spicy and the herbal house original. Go hard on the veggies; mushrooms, broccoli and lotus root get some of the best flavor absorption. But by the end, if you’re doing it right, you’re nursing the last of a Tsingtao lager and slowly swirling the last few slices of pork belly that you’re too full to eat but simply cannot leave behind.

Rice Table at Gado Gado

1801 NE César E. Chávez Blvd., 503-206-8778, gadogadopdx.com. (Reservation required for the rice table. Rice table menu can accommodate vegans and pescatarians, as well as people with nut, shellfish and dairy allergies.)

Gado Gado has always been a flavor explosion, with even the rice getting an addictive signature blend of coconut, turmeric and pandan. This fall, owners Thomas and Mariah Pisha-Duffy landed on the finest form for their impressive array of plump dumplings and spicy sambals: an Indonesian-Dutch-style rice table.

For $75 a person, you’re served a literal parade of different dishes for your group to divvy and share. At 10-plus plates, they can give you the classics, like the umami-packed beef rendang, while also throwing in new surprises with seasonal ingredients, like coconut creamed shishito peppers. It’s the kind of feast where you start out worried that there’s only one delicate mushroom and shrimp shumai—topped with salty bursts of roe—for each person. But then you end with everyone trying to force the last of a shrimp sambal with lobster broth on the least full friend. And yet you’ll still find room for the heavenly cardamom doughnuts with kaya jam, served to rice table guests only.

House Vegetarian Sampler at Queen of Sheba

2413 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 503-287-6302, queenofsheba.biz/restaurant.

This is a true feast for two: 10 vegetable offerings—stews, greens, sautéed things—resting on a huge spongy injera bread for just $26. The injera soaks up all the warm spices from the kik wet split pea stew. And my personal favorite is the atakilt alicha: sautéed potatoes, carrots, and green beans in mild alicha spice that adds aromatics without overpowering the veg.

This can be a mix-and-match feast, depending on your party size. Add the sizzling lamb in a spicy berbere sauce or the yedero wet: lemon-washed chicken legs stewed in a spicy sauce topped with a hard-boiled egg.

Gluten-free patrons can call ahead to make sure they can order injera made only with teff grains, making this easily one of the best ways to please any crowd you’re apt to assemble.

Whole Fish and a Mess of Sides at La Moule

2500 SE Clinton St., 971-339-2822, lamoulepdx.com.

La Moule has always been my platonic ideal of a restaurant: a fantastic wine and cocktail list, incredible big bowls filled with the plumpest mussels in flavorful broth, and a convivial atmosphere helped along by the vintage-inspired heart-shaped mussel wallpaper that’s the best in the city.

This is where I always want to gather a group of friends I haven’t seen in a minute, grab whatever cocktail is new on the menu, and whatever whole fish is on. There’s something so elemental about pulling the soft, buttery fish from the platter and serving it up for everyone. Grab whatever else looks good—I always go for the butter lettuce salad, chicken liver mousse and frites—and, of course, enjoy the vibe.

Korean Barbecue at K-Town Korean BBQ

5450 SE 82nd Ave., 503-444-7700, ktownkoreanbbq.com.

There are a decent handful of Korean barbecue restaurants in Portland (and Beaverton), but I usually find myself back at K-Town at Southeast 82nd and Foster. The banchan is plentiful and frequently refilled. And $28 for all you can eat (per person) seems like a crime for how much meat my friends and I can put down.

With a sizzling grill at the center, I love to bring a group around to cook up strips of well-seasoned bulgogi beef and kalbi short ribs. Usually one or two people wind up grillmasters, responsible for doling out the choice morsels to everyone as they’re done. It’s always interactive and always a great time. I got a group of eight together in that magical post-vaccination, pre-Delta variant window for barbecue before heading to a private room at Baby Ketten Karaoke, and let me just say it restored my soul.

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