Restaurant Review Archives - Page 2 of 8

Dave February 29, 2012

Mi Mero Mole – Guisados in Portland

The Splendid Humble Taco

Mi Mero Mole is a Mexican street food concept restaurant created and run by Nick Zukin (the Zuke in Kenny & Zuke’s). When you enter the SE Division eatery, you’ll find a blackboard with the day’s “guisados”: three choices of meat, a seafood option, two vegetarian options, and one vegan dish. You pick the guisado (which is a stew or filling) and then choose what format you’d like your guisado served in. You can get them in the form of tacos, plates (platos machos), burritos, and quesadillas.

Here a taco is the most basic, consisting of a guisado with rice on a corn tortilla. Platos Machos is about the same except you get chips, rice, beans, and two tortillas. Burritos are off our menu because they use wheat tortillas (sorry). As many of our readers can probably guess, a quesadilla is about the same as a taco, just add cheese and give it some time on the grill. Some examples of guisado choices from the board: Pork in adobo, meatballs in a chipotle-tomato sauce (the meatballs aren’t gluten free), chicken with cactus in a tomatillo sauce, smoked tongue, shrimp in a cream sauce, poblano chiles in a sour cream and cheese sauce, mushrooms and asparagus in a red chile and cream sauce, and the vegan potatoes and cactus in chipotle and tomatillo sauce.

Care has obviously been taken to present adventurous street fare, as the menu includes tongue, blood sausage, rabbit, and even duck. The printed menu is marked for gluten, vegetarian, vegan, and different levels of fire. The atmosphere is an exact cross between a hipster gastro pub and a Mexican hole in the wall. So the seating format screams Mexican restaurant while the music playing is on the hipster/alt side. You order at a counter, but the lighting is subdued.

We liked the atmosphere, although to me, Mi Mero Mole seems more like a place to grab some tacos on your way to something else. Probably because of the format: You order at a counter and sit down. The food is brought to you very quickly. Besides chips and guacamole, there aren’t really appetizers. The only thing that says “stay a while” to me are the cocktails and beer. Like the guisado menu, the cocktail menu is very interesting. The drinks are strong. There are also aguas frescas, and the horchata is sweet and heavy on the cinnamon.

The staff is very friendly and helpful. As mentioned, the food comes out quickly and is a good temperature. The ingredients seem to be fresh. The times we’ve visited, Zukin himself was bringing out the dishes and talking to people in the restaurant.

The chips are awesome and seem house made. The tortillas are fresh and delicious. The salsa choices are good. The guacamole is disappointingly tame, and could benefit from garlic and lime juice. We have tried a bunch of different guisados. The egg ones we found too salty, but everything else we have tried has been great. I’m pretty sure that the pork in adobo is our favorite, but we are also partial to the chicken and cactus, and the vegan cactus and potatoes. Fans of fried plantains will love the Mi Mero Mole version, which is served with a sauce made from Mexican sour cream, sugar, and cinnamon.

Google translate tells me that Mi Mero Mole translates to “My Mere Mole.” Mole is pronounced like “Ole!” but with an M, and means “a mixture.” I’m thinking that in this case, Zukin was thinking “my simple mix” and that is indeed what the restaurant is. If you’re looking for a no fuss, no muss, inexpensive Mexican taste treat on a weekday night, it’s going to be pretty hard to go wrong with a place like Mi Mero Mole.

Gluten-Free Safety Rating: Gluten-Free Friendly but Ask Questions
Times we have visited: 3 (So we feel pretty good about the rating.)
Overall rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Price compared to “regular”: same

Mi Mero Mole
mmmtacospdx.com
5026 SE Division St, Portland, OR 97215
(503) 232-8226

Dave January 22, 2012

Veggie Grill Opening Event

Among other Portland bloggers, we were invited to an event to celebrate the opening of a Veggie Grill in Beaverton, Oregon. Both of us have been vegetarian and vegan in the past, and we definitely do our best to add veggie-friendly info to Gluten Free Portland, so we were really happy to be invited. Here is part of the invitation they sent us:

Restauranteur of the year and native Oregonian Ed Casey is bringing Vegan restaurant Veggie Grill to town! Veggie Grill has hearty comfort food that really brings a new twist to vegan and vegetarian fare. The Veggie Grill menu is satisfying food for vegetarians and vegans and traditionally meat loving folks alike. The restaurant is located at 3435 SW Cedar Hills Blvd Suite D, Beaverton OR 97140.

We didn’t know exactly what to expect, but the website makes it look kind of like a more pricey vegan American fast food joint. That is pretty much what we discovered when we attended the event. I also heard it described as “vegan American comfort food” but it’s definitely not “comfort food” in the collard greens & grits sense of the word. So yeah, I’m going to stick with more pricey vegan American fast food joint. They are a chain that started in Los Angeles, and there is one in Seattle as well. Comparisons to Chipotle, Baja Fresh, and/or Noodles & Company would definitely be fair.

The place was clean, the help was friendly, and the food arrived very quickly. The decor is slick and the restaurant has an upbeat and energetic vibe. Basically the entire menu is salads and various kinds of veggie burger. And here’s where we introduce the unfortunate fact: we’re not really going to be the core audience for the Veggie Grill. The sandwiches are served on wheat buns and the vegan chickin’ and veggie-steak meat substitutes are made with wheat (among other ingredients). The burgers can be served on a bed of kale, and they do have tempeh, so that opens the options up a little bit, but really, almost everything on the menu needs some fiddling to make it gluten-free.

When asked about the gluten-free options, all the staff were able to make suggestions, and it was obvious that the restaurant took the time to educate everybody about gluten issues (which we always really appreciate). The items on the menu that were suggested were the All Hail Kale (pictured above) with tempeh, the Thai Chickin’ salad (but without the chickin’ and wontons), the Bali Bliss Sandwich (but on kale), and the Papa’s Portobello burger (also on kale).

We sampled the All Hail Kale, Bali Bliss on kale, and the Portobello burger. We both quite enjoyed the All Hail Kale, which is basically a marinated kale salad with cabbage, salsa, and a vinaigrette. It was fresh, light, and flavorful. The veggies were obviously fresh, and the dish was satisfying. Sienna found the Portobello burger disappointingly bland. The Bali Bliss was basically as good as a tempeh patty can be when served on a bed of kale. I like tempeh, and if you’ve had a lot of tempeh, then you probably know what I mean. The tempeh itself was good but not particularly flavorful. It was served with an interesting lightly spicy aoli-like sauce, which helped quite a bit.

The final analysis: We both left with the feeling that we weren’t really the intended audience of the Veggie Grill. Although they’ve definitely done their homework to be gluten-free friendly, the menu isn’t marked, and I think that there’s enough room for ingredient confusion with fakin’ chicken and beef that it probably should be marked. I will say that if we lived in Beaverton and some of our vegan friends wanted to get something to eat, it would be on our list of possible places to visit. Check out Portland vegan blog Get Sconed for more coverage.

Gluten-Free Safety Rating: Gluten-Free Friendly but Ask Questions
Times we have visited: 1 (So your experience may vary.)
Overall rating: 2 out of 5 stars
Price compared to “regular”: same

Veggie Grill
veggiegrill.com
3435 SW Cedar Hills Blvd, Beaverton OR 97140
(503) 234-7437

Dave January 9, 2012

Good News! Pambiche is Gluten-Free Friendly

Great news everybody! Our favorite Cuban restaurant, Pambiche on NE Glisan, is now gluten-free friendly, sporting an “alternativas” menu (PDF here). I’m not going to go into a great deal of depth with this article. Suffice it to say that they have a number of items on their regular menu which are also gluten free. All of their fritters are gluten-free, as are their fried plaintains, yuca root, salads, entrees, and even a couple of desserts.

Here’s what I got for an entree when we visited: The Camarones al Ajillo. These are delicious garlicky prawns with a sour orange sauce served with white rice, pan frito, and ensalada de aguacate.

The wait staff at Pambiche is always really awesome, the food comes out in a reasonable amount of time, and there is always a ton of stuff on the walls to keep a person’s attention. My only real complaint with the place is that it is too small. They really need to get a larger dining area. There always seem to be people waiting for seating every time we drive by.

I have to say that I’m amazed and excited with how many restaurants in Portland are starting to get hip to the gluten free jive. Did I mention that the alternative menu also has some vegetarian and vegan options? Good deal.

Dave January 6, 2012

Horrible Service at Iorio

Usually I prefer to talk about stuff that I really love, and spread good news about restaurants and cafes that are doing things right. Recently, we had such a bad experience at a restaurant that I feel the need to post it here.

We went to Iorio for New Year’s Eve and had the worst experience at a restaurant since our hair raising Valentines Day at Wild Abandon. We had made reservations and we did notify the restaurant ahead of time that one of our party (me) was gluten free, but all night long the staff kept putting the wrong food in front of me.

When we first reviewed Iorio, we thought it was really great, and definitely want to note that this is one experience on one night. At the same time…

From the very start, our waiter was brief to the point of being rude. When our appetizers came, he basically threw the plates down in front of us without a word and zipped off. I had to wait for him to come back so that I could find out if the dish was gluten free, which it wasn’t. Then I had to wait for several minutes while a dish was made for me. Now I could see this happening once during a meal at a restaurant, but not three times. It happened with almost everything they put in front of me. The one time it didn’t happen, the person who brought us our food wasn’t aware that I was gluten free and didn’t know if the dish was (it turned out that it was, but by this time I was paranoid).

For dessert, a normal piece of cake was placed in front of me, and when I asked, I was amazed to discover that they had forgotten again, and I ended up waiting at least 15 minutes for a substitute dessert to come out. Again, if they had just found out, this would have been OK. Instead, they had my reservation for several weeks, and the waiter knew that I was gluten free pretty soon after he threw the appetizers at us. When they messed up our desserts, Sienna got up, went to the back, and asked to talk to the manager. The manager acted hostile when she complained about the bad service. There’s even more to the story, but we’re choosing not to include it here. Suffice it to say that our dessert was not their last mistake.

Because I’m gluten free, I know that I’m kind of high maintenance. I do my best to express gratitude for the extra trouble that restaurants have to put into serving me. While all out the food we were served was outstanding, the service at Iorio was so bad that I wondered if we had done something by mistake to irk our waiter. Then we noticed that the couple at the table next to us was just as unhappy. We have since then also noticed that the Yelp page on Iorio is starting to fill up with complaints about the service.

I keep reading about how the chef at Iorio is winning awards. So it confuses me that he would turn a blind eye and allow visitors at his restaurant to have such a horrible experience.

Dave September 19, 2011

Tula Gluten Free Bakery – New Kid in Town

Our friends started raving recently about a new gluten-free bakery that opened up on NE Alberta. We just went there for the first time two weekends ago, and went back for some pizza the night that they had their opening celebration. Tula Gluten Free Baking Co. is located at the corner of NE Martin Luther King Jr. and NE Alberta. Besides being a bakery, they also have lunch and breakfast items, pizza, and espresso drinks. The bakery itself is good-sized, featuring a nice area to sit and eat gluten-free baked goods.

Tula has a number of treats available. As mentioned above, they have pizza. Behind the counter they usually have a couple different kinds of scone, a few different tart-sized quiches, cookies, cupcakes, breads, and hand pies. You can also pick up some par-baked focaccia bread and/or delicious olive bread. Because baked goods are a particularly sore spot for the gluten-intolerant, we see it as our duty to eat lots and lots of baked goods. We do it out of our sense of duty and in a spirit of altruism. Especially when it comes to cookies.

Here we have, starting at the cookie and moving clock-wise around the box: A chocolate-chip salt cookie, a mixed berry pie, a curried vegetable hand pie, and two mini quiches. The cookie ended up being the least popular item we sampled. None of us were particularly excited about it. It seems strangely greasy and besides the grease flavor, there isn’t a lot to it. We’re happy to report, however, that everything else here was really amazing. They all benefit from a little time in a toaster oven to get them warm again. We were especially fond of the berry pie, the curry hand pie, and the tomato dill mini quiche there. These all had great flavors, and the pie crust at Tula is really excellent.

Focaccia bread is one of those things I really miss, and until now haven’t been able to replace it. The focaccia at Tula comes par baked. So you take it home and finish baking it right before you want to eat it. There’s enough focaccia there to make 4 good-sized sandwiches. The ingredients are millet flour, sorghum flour, potato starch, tapioca starch, agave syrup, xanthan gum, sea salt, olive oil, and rosemary (so it’s vegan). To finish baking, you put it in the oven at 375 degree and bake 11 to 15 minutes. Fresh out of the oven, this focaccia is soft, springy and delicious. It’s good dipped in oil and vinegar, but it’s even better with some honey!

We also tried the pizza at Tula. The good news is that the pizza here is totally safe, since it’s made in a dedicated gluten-free bakery. I’m used to crossing my fingers every time I set foot in a pizza place that has gluten-free pizza available. Half for good luck, and half because I feel like I’m testing my fate. Many places around town are careful about cross-contamination, but to me, it’s really nice to get a pizza that you know definitely hasn’t been dragged through a pile of wheat flour. The crust style is thin, and soft. So if you’re into pizza with soft crusts, this one is for you. I found the lack of topping variety a little disappointing (they only have vegetarian options) and also Sienna and I were dissatisfied with the flavor. The sauce seems more like a ragu and is sweet. Although the cheese and other toppings are good, I felt like the sauce was seeping into the crust and losing its flavor. I think a lot of pizza places fight this by rubbing the crust with a crushed garlic piece and applying a bit of olive oil before adding the sauce.

We’ve been back a couple of times, and every time we’ve had great experiences with the people at the counter. Everybody is friendly and ready to answer questions about the items there and the bakery itself. Did we mention that the place is vegetarian-friendly? They also have vegan options. Last, they serve sandwiches.

Our final verdict: We’re really excited to have another retail gluten-free bakery open in town, and especially happy to have one that has such a wide range of products. We took the focaccia bread and made grilled cheese sandwiches out of it. This is my new favorite thing to do.

Gluten-Free Safety Rating: Gluten-Free Dedicated Facility
Times we have visited: 3 (So we feel pretty good about our score.)
Overall rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Price compared to “regular”: 1 or 2 bucks, depending on the item

Tula Gluten Free Baking Co.
Tula on Facebook
4943 NE Martin Luther King Jr Blvd Ste 101 Portland, OR 97211 / 541.306.1250

Dave September 13, 2011

Restaurant Review: Cafe Rio

Editor’s note: We all went to Cafe Rio together, and our friend Lorna Nakell spontaneously wrote this review about our experience. (P.S. We try to mark when restaurants are vegan/vegetarian friendly, and this one very clearly is. Also, the espresso drinks that we had were awesome!) Thanks Lorna!

Café Rio is a hip enough sounding name for a Portland eatery—but don’t be deceived. Immediately upon entering this small establishment, friends and I were disappointed. It seemed that the owner couldn’t decide between having a sit-down or take-out restaurant, so they went for something in-between—not a cart, but also not a full dining establishment either—a “cartaurant.” Although there were five in our party, there was only one table—in the whole place (okay, it was actually two smaller tables that we had to fit together), and that table would only accommodate four of us. My son was left to make himself comfortable in an upholstered chair (complete with attached swivel table) that looked like it was teleported in from an 80’s style hotel lobby.

The menu appeared simple enough for their small kitchen set-up and featured many variations of their specialty dish, GF waffles. In addition, they offered scrambled eggs with your choice of toppings. At first we were afraid that they would be microwaving the eggs, but were pleased to find out that they actually had two small sauté pans at the ready.

Dishes we ordered included two different egg scrambles, three different kinds of waffles, a scone (brought in from an outside baking co.), coffees and a fresh squeezed orange juice. This is what happened: Orders for our table came a little too staggered. We were surprised and saddened when our food was served on paper plates looking like it was prepared by my seven-year-old son (no offense, Calder).

Sorry for the image quality - but...

The egg dishes came without sides of toast or garnishes of any kind. Although the sausage in mine was tasty, the eggs were crumbly and they skimped on the spinach leaves. The waffles, on their own, ended up being pretty tasty and a good consistency. But, initially, we had a rough go at it because in addition to having to navigate waffle cutting with plastic utensils, we were informed that they didn’t have any butter or jam, but would we like some coconut oil instead (Ummm, why would I want that? Do YOU use that?).

Waffles with Banana and Nuts

Bottom line: Friendly and accommodating service, airport style presentation and atmosphere. Although I want to be encouraging to any dining establishment that is trying to incorporate GF food into their menu, sometimes all the pieces of a restaurant just don’t fit together the way they should. So, in regards to Café Rio, I have to say that unless you live in their hood and are too tired from partying the night before to drag out ye ol’ waffle iron and whip up some Bob’s Redmill pancake mix (which, by the way, is what they use), by all means give them a try. If not, there are so many other great restaurants that serve GF goods these days, you shouldn’t go out of your way to visit Café Rio.

Dave August 31, 2011

Another Gluten Free Pizza Contender Appears: Sizzle Pie

Considering that their pizza graced the cover of the Portland Monthly Magazine in February of this year, I have an itching suspicion that we’re a little late to the party at Sizzle Pie. That doesn’t change the fact that their pizza is awesome.

Sizzle Pie is smack dab in the hip blocks of East Burnside, at 624. It’s a couple blocks from the Doug Fir, and practically next door to that one cool bar with no name. Like the neighborhood, the decor, help, and jukebox is also hip. When we went there, the music ranged from The Cramps to a song that sounded like Devo if Devo was playing buzz guitars.

The menu is adventurous/upscale. By “upscale” I don’t mean expensive. I mean there are ingredients like white truffle oil, goat cheese, cilantro pepitas pesto, and even dried cranberries. At Sizzle Pie, a person can get what might be called “gourmet pizza” if the term hadn’t already been ruined by marketers. Obviously, you can also get a basic pepperoni and mushroom slice if that’s what you’re looking for, but it’s nice to know there are lots of interesting options. All their crusts are vegan, including the gluten-free crust. They also have an enormous vegan section in their menu.

As with most pizza places, alas, they cook the gluten-free pizza in a shared oven. So if you’re in the population who really need to watch out, then you should keep eating your pizza at New Cascadia or build your own with a store-bought crust.

Speaking of pizza, the Sizzle Pie crust style is thin, and there are green specs in the crust, so obviously they’re adding in some spices to make it more flavorful. It’s delicious. Along with being thin, it’s also the perfect amount of crunchy. I don’t know how they did it, but this is among the best gluten-free crusts I’ve had. We got the Golden Ring pizza, which is White Truffle Oil, Goat Cheese, and Green Onion, and we added garlic and pepperoni. This was one awesome pizza. We got a 12 inch pizza and it was the perfect size to feed two.

There are two things to note. First, the regular “large” pizza is 18 inches, but the gluten-free large is 16. Apparently the gluten-free crust just won’t get those extra couple of inches bigger. Second, don’t assume that the pizza you’re ordering is going to have red sauce. If you really want a pizza with red sauce, you should probably ask. There’s a place on the menu where it says that all their pizzas feature red sauce “unless otherwise noted” but this ends up being a little confusing, because if you get pesto, white truffle oil, caramelized onion spread, cream sauce, or something else that counts as “sauce” then you’re not getting red sauce. Which makes sense, but we got caught out.

No Red Sauce Here.

Luckily, our pizza was awesome without red sauce.

Everybody we had contact with was very friendly, the pizza came out hot, and the place is nice and clean. We sat out back on the patio, which was great on a warm August night. There was a line when we walked in the door, and there was a line when we left.

Our final verdict: With gluten-free pizza, we think that the crust is most of the battle, and so many crusts lack crunch or aren’t very flavorful. We’re going to have to try some more pies from Sizzle Pie, and it’s definitely not going to be a painful process, luckily! Have you eaten there yet? Let us know in the comments!

Gluten-Free Safety Rating: Gluten-Free Friendly but Shared Oven So Watch Out
Times we have visited: 1 (So your experience may vary.)
Overall rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Price compared to “regular”: 1 or 2 bucks, depending on the size

Sizzle Pie
www.sizzlepie.com
624 E. Burnside, Portland OR, 97214 / 503.234.7437

Dave July 3, 2011

Gluten Free Friendly Bakery: White Rabbit in Aurora

We’ve been trading emails with a couple of bakeries around the Portland Metro area, and recently we were headed through Aurora, so we stopped by for some sandwiches and picked up some baked goods. Since we usually show up at places incognito, it needs to be mentioned here that White Rabbit knew we were coming. I like having this kind of experience, because we get to hear the person’s story. We took the goodies over to my friend Noah’s house and had a taste testing with Noah, his wife Lorna, his son Calder, Sienna, and me. So this time we were able to get a kid’s perspective on the goodies.

White Rabbit Bakery Owner, Emily Arreola

Owner Emily Arreola had originally intended to open a bakery in Portland, but when the roof of the kitchen they were renting literally fell in, they decided that maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to open the bakery in Aurora. For those of you who are scratching your heads over where Aurora is, its South of Wilsonville, and it’s pretty tiny.

White Rabbit does bake wheat products, but they take precautions to prevent cross-contamination. They try to isolate the areas where they use different products when possible, and thoroughly clean equipment and surfaces when they can’t. On their display case, they have a disclaimer that they do cook with wheat, nuts, eggs, dairy, and soy, and that they don’t recommend their products for the severely allergic. None of the gluten free folks who did taste testing with their baked goods experienced any problems.

During our visit, Sienna and I sat down for sandwiches, and had some lattes. The lattes were good, and the sandwiches were stellar. We both had tuna salad sandwiches. Sorry about the bad photo. I wanted to show what the bread on these sandwiches looked like. That’s right – it’s like Focaccia bread! Fluffy, kind of olive-oil flavored, delicious bread that made me worry that I was eating wheat bread. Wow!

Besides the bread for our sandwiches, White Rabbit gave us some other bread to sample. The texture and flavor of this bread is exactly like most of the gluten-free breads we make with our bread machine. Like basically all gluten-free breads, it really needs to be toasted before you eat it. The bread has good flavor and a great crunch when toasted. I ended up wishing that it was a little less dense, but Sienna really loved this bread. We tried it toasted with butter, and also used it as a base for open faced hamburgers. It easily beats any of the store-bought breads I’ve purchased recently (Whole Foods brand and Rudi’s).

On to the baked goods. As you can see, we got quite a range of items. Here are notes for them:

Lavender Shortbread Cookies – Obviously for those who like lavender. Best gluten free cookies ever. EVER. They are crisp, and have the perfect amount of lavender, so that it doesn’t overpower the taste of the cookie.

Cinnamon Sugar Donuts – While we were eating our sandwiches, a man and his little daughter came in looking for some of their chocolate glazed gluten-free donuts. Apparently, they’re awesome. We all liked the cinnamon doughnut. It was donutty, and close to the real thing.

Chocolate Chip Oat Scone – The adults were luke-warm on the chocolate chip scone, but Calder thought it was great. We thought that the scone part was good, but not so much the chocolate chip part of it.

Brownie – Everybody loved the brownie. It is nearly the perfect consistency and is deliciously chocolaty. We enthusiastically gave this item an eight out of ten, and then promptly forgot to rate anything else.

Chocolate Cookie – We all liked it. It was properly gooey inside, crunchy outside, and had good flavor. We all felt like it needed something. Maybe some powdered sugar on top? Maybe baked thinner?

Fruit Bar in the Front left there – We thought that although the flavor was good, but it seemed undercooked.

Raspberry Orange Sour Cream Muffin – Another universally liked item. The muffin is light and fluffy, the texture is perfect, the flavors intriguing, and the lemony frosting is perfect on it.

Lemon Bars (with raspberries and plain) – The lemon bars are properly tart, which we loved. We all wished that the crust was a little more crisp, but these were also a winner, especially the bar with raspberries.

Banana Cream Pie – This was Noah’s favorite. All the adults were trying to figure out what the crust is made of. It’s really quite remarkable. Banana cream pies are usually more custard-like, but this pie is more on the whipped cream end of the spectrum, and is almost insubstantial.

We ended up being really impressed with White Rabbit’s baked goods. Check out this page for a more comprehensive list of their products. The clear winners were the banana cream pie, the Raspberry Orange Sour Cream Muffin, the lemon bars, and the lavender cookies. Sienna’s favorite was the gluten-free doughnut. She also had a slice of their quiche, and she found it necessary to drop an f-bomb when describing how much she liked it. Did we mention that they make gluten-free granola? White Rabbit does and it’s good. I’d say that the worst thing about the White Rabbit Bakery is that it’s a little bit out of the way, down south of Wilsonville. If you find yourself in the neighborhood, though, we recommend that you stop by for a delicious sandwich and a treat.

We want to know: Anywhere else to get gluten-free donuts? Have you eaten at the White Rabbit Bakery? What did you think? Let us know!

Gluten-Free Safety Rating: Gluten-Free Friendly But Ask Questions
Times we have visited: 1 (So your experience may vary.)
Overall rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Price compared to “regular”: Same

White Rabbit Bakery
www.whiterabbitbakery.com
21368 Hwy 99e, Aurora OR, 97002/ 503.267.9044

Dave June 23, 2011

Gluten Free Sandwiches at Seven Virtues on NE Glisan

Gina, who writes the Portland gluten-free blog Gluten-Free Gourmand, posted a review of the gluten-free sandwiches at Seven Virtues on NE Glisan at 60th. We visited and have to agree that their sandwiches are awesome! We didn’t want to steal Gina’s thunder, so that’s it for our review. You should check out her review, here: Seven Virtues Serves GF Sandwiches

Oh! And they have really good coffee and espresso drinks. And gluten-free goodies from Petunia’s.

Seven Virtues
sevenvirtuespdx.com
5936 Northeast Glisan Street Portland, OR 97213 503.236.7763

Dave June 21, 2011

Restaurant Review: Natural Selection on Alberta

There are so many ways to twist the name of this restaurant to make a fancy headline that I’m not going to do it. Not that I’m “into” fancy, eye-grabbing headlines to begin with. If you’re not familiar with Natural Selection, read up on some Darwin. Ha ha. I kid. In reality, Natural Selection on Alberta is a restaurant in (for today, but maybe not tomorrow,) sunny Portland, Oregon. Being on Alberta, you know there’s an angle, don’t you? To be honest, there are several angles. First up, Natural Selection is an upscale vegetarian restaurant. It is vegan and gluten-free friendly. The menu changes weekly on Wednesdays.

(Sadly, those fried artichokes are not gluten-free! Maybe next time?)

Although a person can order à la carte, it’s really best to do a four course meal with selections from the menu. As you can see, the menu has two columns. So there are 2 of each course to choose from. For an extra 11 clams, you can get wine pairings to go with your courses. We didn’t do the wine pairings, opting instead for a pair of interesting (and strong) cocktails from their extensive and interesting cocktail menu.

Eating at Natural Selection reminded me of a pair of restaurant rules we followed during our trip to Italy. Generally speaking, it’s a good rule to never eat in a restaurant that: A) You don’t know, and B) Is empty. In Venice, it wasn’t enough to look for a restaurant that was full of people, because it might be full of tourists eating terrible Italian Cuisine cooked especially for tourists. We noticed that in restaurants where the food was bad, the Italians would look uncomfortable, almost to the point of looking stunned or visibly dismayed. So to our “no empty restaurants” rule, we added a “look for happy eaters” rule. These two rules served us well. The reason Natural Selection reminded me of these rules is because when we went there, everybody looked happy.

Besides the interesting menu and happy patrons, they have very cool lighting, nice decor, had Radiohead playing the entire time we were there, and their staff was friendly and prompt. I’m going to get our one complaint out of the way right now: The seating there is kind of uncomfortable. The restaurant is basically a row of tables with chairs on one side and cushioned “booth” type seating on the other. The chairs are hard and too upright for my tastes. On the cushion side, there is a large gap between the bottom cushion and the back cushion, so Sienna ended up sitting with her purse behind her to avoid it.

On to the food. On the menu posted up above, I did the fully vegan, gluten-free right-hand side run of courses. Note that our waitress did mention that you should tell them that you’re gluten free. She said that there might be a difference in what you get, depending on what’s on the menu. Before the courses began, we were brought a tasty little amuse bouche. Then came the Sweet Pea Soup. This soup was delicious, and didn’t taste like any pea soup I had ever had. The carrot and pickled red onion island there in the middle was crunchy, which served as a nice counterpoint to the creamy soup.

Next up on my side was a Radish and Cucumber Salad, the photo of which didn’t turn out, but which was very interesting. It had pickled sea weed (“sea beans”) and radishes, so it was kind of pickly, vinegary, and bitter. Pictured above is a Mixed Romaine Salad with pear, dried figs, and a walnut dressing. That was the better of the two salads. I found my salad a little too monochromatic, and liked the more sweet and cheesy walnut flavor of the romaine salad.

Here’s the Abalone Mushroom on fried Polenta. This dish was really amazing. The Polenta was done perfectly, and the sauce was tasty. We had to look up what “romesco” was. It’s a sauce made from nuts.

Here is the Asparagus & New Potato Hash. This was like having a wonderful potato hash with asparagus (as the name would suggest) but came with a tasty vinaigrette that made the dish very interesting.

Before the dessert, we were brought a small scoop of hibiscus strawberry sorbet, which was amazing. For dessert, delicious coffee from a press and a nutty vanilla rice pudding with a delicious strawberry rhubarb consomme. This was awesome! If you’re looking for a big sweet slab of rice pudding, you might be disappointed, but I was delighted with this light nutty and fruity dessert. Mmmmmmm.

The dishes are definitely paced, so it’s the kind of place where you’re going to want to slow down, enjoy the company of your friends, dine, and people watch. However, nothing took overly long. As mentioned earlier, our server was friendly and knowledgeable, and 3/4 of the menu can be made gluten-free. I should also mention that the servings are the exact right size so that you won’t end up walking away overstuffed or feeling hungry. How can you go wrong? This place is awesome, and is perfect for special occasions.

Gluten-Free Safety Rating: Gluten-Free friendly but Ask Questions!
Times we have visited: 1 (So your experience may vary.)
Overall rating: 5 out of 5 stars (wow!)
Price compared to “regular”: Same

Natural Selection
www.naturalselectionpdx.com
3033 Northeast Alberta Street Portland, OR 97211 / 503.288.5883

Many thanks and a quick shout-out to Liam for the restaurant recommendation.

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