ALL Our Trips
Lovely Hula Hands
4057 n. Mississippi
Portland, OR 97227
503.445.9910
The name of the place is "Lovely Hula Hands"
located in "North Portland", once a "no man land" and far away from tourist attractions,
if you are not a local, your chances of making it here are close to zero.
The restaurant is located in "young people neighborhood", I never seen so many lesbians and tattoos per capita,
as I seen on the street and inside the restaurant.
The food is just simply LOVELY! Chef with innovation streak in him, excellent use of ingredients, fresh, and great overall results.
I had quails garnished with pickled cherries, real bacon bits, corn bread, string beans and lots of love.
The baby octopus for starter wasn't chubby either.
Wine list is diverse and priced very reasonably. If you ever make it here despite all odds, come early, the place had line at the door by 7 pm and they don't take reservations.
Veritable Quandary
1220 SW 1st Ave
Portland, OR 97201
(503) 227-7342
The Veritable Quandary
is a long family tradition. My step daughter lost her virginity there, well, sort of.
She was the vegetarian and I corrupted her to try fish for the first time there. She is a vegetarian no more.
We had TRUE BLIND TASTING tonight. My wife's aunts are both legally blind and they call the wines like it is,
labels have no effect on them, always fun to drink with them both.
The food.
Menu changes quite often but....seems like the chef is afraid of taking chances and stays withing traditional menu.
I had Dungeon Crab salad with avocado and while all the ingredients were quite good on their own,
the salad failed to make an integrated dish, very disjoint.
My Osso Bucco was also far from perfection, I got used to much better rendition by MikeW at home.
Him buying cuts via internet at $35 a pop and slow cooking them in his special sauces makes lots of difference.
Pro's:
corkage fee is only $10 and it was waved when I swept our waitress off her feet with 1996 Barolo we brought
The place is in the center, plenty of parking though
Lots and lots of tables outside
Decent and normally priced wine list
Con's - the food is good but not very exciting or memorable, we are taking blind aunts to the lesbians the next year.
I doubt anybody will hit on them, they both look like a very nice 70 years old devoted couple!
Alberta Street oyster bar and grill
2926 NE Alberta St., Portland, OR 97211
Phone: (503) 284.9600
Reviews/Awards
Awarded '2006 Rising Star' by the Oregonian
Named one of 'Americas Best Restaurants' by Zagat
'Top 15 Restaurants' by Portland Monthly
'Top 101 Restaurants' by New York's City Magazine
Food has also been featured in such magazines as Bon Appetit, Gourmet and World Traveler
We arrived with great expectations and in good spirits. Per our request we were seated outside in the patio area,
where it was more quiet than inside, which was already starting to hop with the dinner crowd.
We started with a bottle of a decent cold, crisp white and then the appetizers arrived.
The Potato Gnocchi, Escargot, Poached Hen Egg, Garlic and Black Truffle Salt appetizer
was a strange combination of thinly textured and oddly tasting gnocchi, rubbery naked escargot,
a 2 minute poached egg that practically exploded to the touch, all in a sort of broth
that wasn’t mentioned in the description. An odd mix and not in a good way.
The second appetizer (one of the daily specials) was an uninspired slab of tough razor clam breaded
in panko and deep fried, served with a thin dribble of yogurt mixed with a commercial curry powder. Not delicious.
The first entree was Pan Fried Skate Wings with Lobster Cream, and was missing
the promised Tarragon Cherve Stuffed Squash Blossom. One of the three skate wings was
of the third degree of freshness, recognizable immediately by the ammonia smell rising up.
The Pork Cheeks with Huckleberry Vinaigrette with Fingerling Potatoes and Fried Leeks
was a bit better than the skate wings, perhaps, but the Vinaigrette was
tart for the dish and the fried leeks were unrecogniable as leeks by the taste.
We’d ordered a second bottle of white, not realizing the entrees were so small the French would be proud,
so we followed up with a cheese plate, which had three small and generally unpleasant pieces of cheese and a few bites of fruit.
The service was fine, but what an enormous disappointment this place was. We do not recommend.
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