Portobello

First up of the food from Oregon, I'm going to share photos and a review, I suppose, of Italian, all-vegan Portobello in Portland. I went there with a couple friends and we tried a bunch of things. I'd been there twice before, and every time everything has been great. They're doing so well, apparently, that they're moving out of Cellar Door and into their own space soon. Can't wait to go to the new spot next time I'm in town.

We split three starters - garlicky broccolini, beet tartare, and a beet salad. The salad was good, but nothing special - boiled beets, apple pieces, I think some walnut and some kind of nut cheese, and greens.



The vinaigrette was fine but not exciting, but we all enjoyed it. That is, until we noticed they forgot to take the sticker off the apple.* Oops! Two of us ate a little plastic before we found the rest, but that's forgivable I guess. I did think the food came out awfully fast.



I'm so glad I'd been recommended the beet tartare - it was so good. The beets were either roasted or boiled, then shredded, and there was a lot of olive oil and a lot of either raw or very slightly cooked garlic.



The broccolini was also super good - I don't know how they put so much oil in their dishes without making them...oily tasting, I guess. Anyways, it seemed like a lot of oil, but wasn't heavy.



The entrees come in either half or full plates, and what with all the starters, half plates were plenty of food for all of us. The food here is definitely filling. This is the portobello steak with yukon gold mashed potatoes. It had a marsala sauce kind of similar to the Farm's tofu marsala, but I think I prefer the Farm's (then again, we all know that when I'm the reviewer tofu vs. mushroom is not a fair fight). It was also maybe a bit on the salty side, but all of that said, it was still really good.



Here's what I ordered - smoked tomato sausage and cheese ravioli with tomato-basil sauce and cashew cream. I thought it was great, but was a little surprised that a place that makes so many things from scratch would use field roast sausage in its ravioli. The sauce and the cashew cream were both really flavorful and not too heavy.



There were some other reactions to the food that I was supposed to include, but totally forgot. Salt, chervil...sorry Claire. Feel free to amend by comment if I misrepresented your dinner!

So yeah, if you're looking for classy Italian food in Portland, check out Portobello. They change their menu seasonally, offer local beer and wine, and use a lot of local organic produce and other ingredients. And it's not one of those vegan restaurants that only vegans like, I promise.

*Actually we still enjoyed the rest of the salad anyways.