Roger Porter

About Roger Porter

Roger Porter is a Professor of English at Reed College. He is the co-author of "A Food Lover's Companion to Portland," of "Self-Same
Songs: Autobiographical Performances and Reflections," and the forthcoming "Bureau of Missing Persons: Writing the Secret Lives of Fathers" (Cornell University Press). He has been a food writer and restaurant critic for Willamette Week and The Oregonian for 20 years, and was nominated for a James Beard award for best restaurant reviewing in the U.S.

Review: Olympia Provisions – Westside

By Roger Porter Last Update January 19, 2018 4 Comments

A review of Olympia Provisions, By Roger Porter Like impatient readers who sneak a look at the last page of a novel, I have a tendency to scan the dessert selections on a menu before checking out anything else. It’s probably because I want to gage my appetitive capacity to decide if I’ll save room for a sweet, or simply wish to plan my dinner with the tastes lined up in a … [Read more...] about Review: Olympia Provisions – Westside

One Dish at the Heathman by Roger Porter

By Roger Porter Last Update January 18, 2018 5 Comments

Every so often a dish comes along so transcendent that even though you inevitably expect great things from the restaurant the preparation looms as a huge surprise, a boon to everything that precedes and follows. Such was a recent experience at dinner at The Heathman, and it once again reminded me how all the clichés about mundane hotel restaurant food simply melt into thin air … [Read more...] about One Dish at the Heathman by Roger Porter

Review: St. Jack

By Roger Porter Last Update April 30, 2019 18 Comments

A Review of St. Jack Restaurant by Roger Porter 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. Jack, in the Hosford-Abernethy neighborhood, across the street from Vindaloo. Gabe … [Read more...] about Review: St. Jack

Review: Gilda’s Italian Restaurant

By Roger Porter Last Update January 15, 2018 37 Comments

A review of Gilda's Italian Restaurant in Portland Oregon by Roger PorterYou 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 sadly we fall down in that department relative to … [Read more...] about Review: Gilda’s Italian Restaurant

Review: Kin

By Roger Porter Last Update May 20, 2016 14 Comments

10/17/2012 - This restaurant is now closed.There’s a wonderful Yiddish word, “ongepotchket.” meaning something that is excessive or overly baroque. In his “relaxed lexicon” of Yiddish, Leo Rosten tells a joke which perfectly illustrates the word. Fleishman, an art collector, buys a painting much admired by his friend Meyerson. It consists of a large black square with … [Read more...] about Review: Kin