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
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
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
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
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