Review: St. Jack

St. Jack Restaurant

Liberté, Egalité, Gastromie! The French Revolution has come to town, and the only guillotine in sight is a chef’s cleaver hacking at a pig. Within a month of each other two French bistros have opened in Portland—Little Bird downtown and St. … [Read more...]

Review: Gilda’s

steak

You hear all the time that one of the lamentable gaps in Portland’s culinary scene is the absence of great Chinese restaurants. Understandably there is little here to compare with the Chinese food palaces of San Francisco or Vancouver, B.C., but … [Read more...]

Review: Beaker & Flask

cocktail-Beaker-thumb

Years ago, I was sitting at the Park Kitchen bar talking to their bartender Kevin Ludwig, while I was having dinner. He mentioned he was leaving PK, and opening his own place somewhere on the East side. As I recall, he planned on having the bar as … [Read more...]

Wine Shots – Olympic Provisions

olympic-provisions

It took me a while to get into Olympic Provisions, the relatively new Charcuterie haven in the made-over Olympic Mills building.  Construction was happening while I was working in the building, but by the time they opened I had gone off to do … [Read more...]

Review: Andina – Restaurant of the Year 2009

Causa at Andina Portland

(minor updates 3/2013) With the myriad of restaurants opening in Portland every year, it is easy to forget some of the older ones, which often are better than the latest gastronomic trend-setters. In my opinion, Andina is one of these, a … [Read more...]

Review: Tasty n Sons

Pork Cutlets

[updates 4.11 - prices, pictures, content] Owned by John Gorham of Toro Bravo, Tasty & Sons is in the old Anju/Nutshell space on north Williams. A group of us dropped to give it a try. The restaurant space has changed quite a bit. The back … [Read more...]

Review: Higgins

On the way home from dinner at Nel Centro one evening, I was bemoaning the fact that I hadn’t had a good meal since I reviewed Tabla. At that moment, we drove past Higgins, which looked completely full. It had been at least five years since my last … [Read more...]