Marc W.'s Profile

Based on Yelp reviews, I decided to take my wife here for her birthday, with our two adult kids. What an outstanding find!

The place is comfortable and casual; lovely for a special evening out. The host, busboy, waiter and sommelier were all friendly, attentive and very knowledgeable about the food and wine.

We started with various wine flights; three glasses of different wines across a single variety - the Biodyanamic Smackdown and the Pinot Noir Smackdown were our favorites. Once we got to the entrees, we ordered a bottle of our 2nd favorite wine (our 1st favorite actually just sold out - must have been a favorite of many other patrons as well).

We were surprised with an amuse-bouche that delighted everyone at the table - a creamy, rich soup with bright flavors to get us going.  We shared the Roasted Marrow Bones and Salmon Gravlox Carpaccio to start. WOW... the rich marrow on a crusty, grilled bread was wonderful and the light, freshness of the salmon and orange was a great companion dish.

I like pork, but rarely get it because it's often cooked well-done, resulting in a dried out chewy piece of meat.  When I read this on their menu:  Grilled Maple-brined Pork Chop with gorgonzola creamed kale, pecans, roasted carrots, apples & mustard seed - I had no choice - I had to try this and was so glad I did. Cooked medium-well, this meat, with the creamed kale, and roasted carrots and apples was perfect. Seriously the best port chop I have ever had.

My wife and son-in-law had the Grilled Carman Ranch Grass-fed Beef Bavette Steak (which included a crispy poached egg - huh? If you've never had a crispy poached egg - surprise!). The steak was tender and flavorful. (My wife had to shoo me away and told me to "keep my fork to myself"). Our daughter's Sweet Potato and Goat Cheese Ravioli with walnut-basil pesto broth, kale, beans, garlic confit and roasted cauliflower was almost comfort food, yet brought an exciting twist of all these warm flavors.

We finished with the Coconut Milk Bread Pudding and TO-DIE-FOR Chocolate Espresso Cake (with rum mascarpone mouse and warm ganache); I was already so full, but could not stop eating that cake - rich and chocolaty but NOT thick and heavy. It was topped with these little round crunchy chocolate cookie pieces that reminded me of a more delicate Cocoa Puff.

I booked through Open Table, and made a request online, asking if they'd be able to surprise my wife with a small cupcake or something topped with a birthday candle. They did it, and brought out a small coffee sorbet with a lit candle, and wrote Happy Birthday on the white plate with piped chocolate. My wife was delighted at the surprise.

Metrovino was the TOTAL AMAZING experience for us, from the greeting at the door, all the way to the chocolaty end.

My first time ever at Cinetopia, so my review here is based only on one visit.  

Pros:  We were the Living Room 21+; very comfortable chairs, loved the ottomans; the video and audio quality was amazing; the staff (ticket gal, ticket-taker and food waiter) were super friendly and helped us along; the food was actually better tasting than we expected (I got the rigatoni and wife got the yakisoba noodles); and nice being in an adult-only theater.

Cons: very expensive, especially for the food. Two bowls of noodles, and two glasses of wine (filled to only 1 inch for $8 per glass) - $55. Plus the $30 for two tickets. It's a pricey evening for two.

Overall, we were completely pleased with the "experience"... just probably something we won't do again - at least in the same fashion - due to the price.

Wife and I are trying out the various ramen places in Portland - Mirakutei was up next.

All I need to say is listen to what Bud F said in his review above: "Get the Genki Ramen.  Do not pass go, do not collect $200, just get the damn Genki Ramen."

We did and we're glad we followed his lead. Agree that the noodles don't appear to be homemade, but they were fine. The star of this dish is the broth: thicker, rich and tasty. The only thing that would have made it better for me would have been a couple slices of kakuni, but not an option here.  They did have an option to add in some chopped pork (can't recall the name from the menu); I got it and it added a nice extra bit of flavor and texture to the dish.

We'll keep trying the other places in town, but Mirakutei is 'on the list'.

After having some really fantastic ramen soup in NYC, we wanted to find some good ramen places in Portland. Our search started with Wafu.

The place is fairly new with a cool, hip decor. It's a bit 'cozy'; going in groups of 4 or less is realistic, but larger groups, maybe not (though the long communal seating table in the front center might hold a larger group, the small'ish confines will likely make it less than comfortable.).

The thing most notable here is that staff -they are friendly, very attentive and accommodating. Our waiter was knowledgeable about the menu items, and joked around with us a bit. The bar staff was friendly and the host welcomed us and beckoned us back for a future visit.

This was our first trip so we only got to try a couple things.  The Roasted Crab Hand Roll was amazing. Light wrapping, fresh crab, magical sauce.

We then had the Ramen with Shoyu (soy sauce based) broth and pork belly. I added a Slow Poached Egg and my dinning partner had the Smoke Pork Shoulder. We were underimpressed with the broth. It tasted fine, but was not as richly seasoned or memorable as I was hoping. I've had Japanese Braised Pork Belly in several other restaurants, and have fallen in love with it. The Pork Belly here was soft and tender, but somewhat bland. On the positive side, we enjoyed the 'al dente' cooked noodles, the Smoked Pork Shoulder was good and my Slow Poached Egg was yummy.

From reading other reviews, there are other wonderful items that need to be tried (e.g. grilled lamb tongue) and we'll likely go back for another try. But as far as great ramen places in Portland, we'll keep looking.

Is there such a thing as "dog pile reviews"?  :)

I'm a super fan of Borrow Lenses. Rented from them many times, and each time, they were so easy to work with. Usually, I just place my order, the lens show up, I use them, and return them. Easy.  A time or two, I've had to modify my reservation and worked with the customer support staff. And yet, still easy to work with and my needs were met.

Highly recommended.

I'm hooked!  I've been there 5-6 times since it opened a little over a month ago, and have not tired of it yet.

First of all, as you read some of the other Yelp! reviews, I'll agree that the service could use improvement. I've had good down to mediocre service here. And I do hope they fix that.  

It gets very busy very fast (clearly it's popular) and my tip to you is go close to the opening times (11:30 for lunch or 5:00pm for dinner), or jump in at 2:00pm before they close for two hours 3:00 - 5:00 prior to dinner.

But the reason for my high rating is the food. The food is fabulous. So rich and tasty, with good kicks of heat on many of the dishes. The only better Sichuan I've had in the U.S.A. was in NYC.  I'm an adventerous eater and have been trying many things from their "Walk on the Wild Side" menu.  I know things like pork kidneys, braised pork belly and flakes of beef tendon might scare some off, but I encourage you to try these dishes. They are really flavorful and enjoyable.

The hand shaven noodles are the must have dish here. Thick noodles with a nice bite covered in a rich brown sauce with bits of pork. I get the Cheng Du Dan Dan Noodle (w/ Pork).  

Try the Fu Chi Beef (Thinly sliced marinated beef in a chili sauce with flakes of beef tendon) for a starter - full of flavor, nice heat. I also recommend the Sliced Pork Belly with Colorful Peppers or the Braised Pork with Mushroom, another pork belly dish. Just remind yourself that pork belly is the same cut of meat that bacon comes from .. and who doesn't like bacon!!

I just had the Sliced Pork Kidneys in a Tangy Broth today.. another one for my favorites list.

Speaking of lists: try this - on their website, on the menus page, they have a "top 20" menu. Work your way through that to get you started - good way to sample a bit of everything. I'm still working through it.

One more thing - their portions are quite generous. So if you are put off by less than great service, hang in there; you'll enjoy the leftovers the next day without the wait.

I hope the lower score here on Yelp! doesn't dissuade you from giving this place a try. It's packed for a reason, and when you notice that many times, it's packed with more than 50% Chinese patrons, it just confirms there is something good going on here.

Enjoy!

Daughter and son-in-law took wife and I out for special dinner this evening. They reserved a side room, we sat on the floor and were treated to an assorted of appetizers, sushi and entrees.

I can't remember all the names of the foods (son-in-law ordered for us), but everything we had was amazing. Flavorful, carefully prepared and beautifully presented. Our waiter was attentive, friendly and took his time with our questions.

I highly recommend to my friends.

What a surprise...

We headed out to get ramen noodles for lunch, but quickly learned that the Japanese don't rise early on Sunday's here in Portland (bummer!).

A quick Yelp! search on my mobile phone for Sichuan style food (I was in the mood for noodles) and this place pops up nearby with strong reviews.

It doesn't look fancy on the outside, and the parking lot really is tiny.. but once we walked in, the server staff was super friendly, the place was clean and decor was nice.

I like spicy food so I ordered the Gwai Wer Noodles. It had the little "spicy" icon next to it, but the server acknowledged it's not that spicy and brought out a chili/pepper tray for me to increase the heat as I wished.  This dish was the winner at my table - full of flavor, very juicy, the meat properly cooked. Yum!

What's worth noting here is that they make their own noodles, hand-made onsite. And these are wonderful. 3 feet long (yes, the server brings scissors to the table to cut them if you wish), great bite and flavorful.

Wife ordered the Zia Jiang Bean Sauce on Noodles. She was less impressed - it wasn't bursting with flavor, like mine was. But, I liked it. True, it was more bland (black bean sauce is mellow), so I added a bit of chili sauce to increase the zing. I ended up eating the left overs for lunch the next day - perfect left-over lunch.

There is a lot more on the menu, but we were told the noodles are the "must get" dish. I'll be back.

I love that they use local.
They print their menu daily based on what's available.
The atmosphere was casual, comfortable and relaxed. Noise level was acceptable.
The food is tasty, very well prepared and interestingly combined.  There was nothing we ordered that we didn't like.

We started with a 5-item pantry board: oregonzola dates (how cool is that name), hummus (super fresh and hand-made), fava bean falafel, risotto fritters (yum) and something with whole figs (I loved, but it seems missing from the menu now). We ordered the chickpea fries, but they where out.

I had a beet and feta salad that was fresh and refreshing. One other ordered the kohlrabi, fava bean and pea salad - what a unique refreshing combination.

For dinner, I took on the lamb osso bucco - WOW. Rich, flavorful and the lamb was delicate. We also tried the dungeness crab risotto (again, unique combination), and Meriwether's Royale with cheese steak-burger. I say, if you are going to eat a hamburger, use great beef. And this one was wonderful.

I think the combination of the old, interesting building, comfortable relaxed environment, a knowledgeable and skiller server and the great food made this a wonderful evening. I'll definitely go back and do recommend Meriwether's for my friends.

Wanted to post a follow up. We purchased two of those certificates from Travel Zoo, so we had to come back again.

The improvements:
Melissa the server was great! Fun, friendly, really improved our experience from the first guy we had. He was still there, but glad we got Melissa this time.

She recommended some nice wines, several of which were not on the menu. We tried two of them and were pleased.

For starters, we had the calamari (good) and the duo dips. The crab dib was awesome, but the fava bean dip - meh!

For entrees, I had the halibut (done Mediterranean style) and it was fabulous. So light and fluffy, with a nice tangy spicying on the outsdie. Wonderful. My wife had the crab cakes that I ended up eating one of. It was OK. She thought it was too salty.

For dessert, she had the flourless chocolate cake with ice cream and strawberry sauce. It was pretty tasty, but I'm going to brag about mine: I had the lemon cheese cake with cobbler-style crumb on top, with rich whip cream. OMG - this was an amazing piece of dessert. Rich, sweet, tangy... I'll give this dish 5 stars!!

The negatives:
The place is still old and worn out, and the prices are incredibly too expensive. Our dinner ended up being $88 (even though we only paid $55 with the Travel Zoo cert)...

As good as that lemon cheese cake was, that dinner was not worth $88. You can get better tasting dinners, with much better ambiance for less than that elsewhere.

Still, not recommending.