Wildwood Review

[Schneier]

(This was written by my wife, Karen Cooper, and myself.)

It’s a neat trick, but this restaurant manages to feel both lively and intimate. Diners are everywhere, and servers are constantly on the move, going from this table to that to make sure things are perfect. But the numerous rooms and alcoves—we sat at a table in a hallway—dampen the noise and make the otherwise crowded restaurant seem cozy instead. The warm tones on the walls and the interesting art and sculptures also help create the mood. There are large windows, opening the restaurant up in the daylight.

We counted five different seating areas. There’s a bar in the front, kitchen counters (you can order off the menu and watch the kitchen prepare it), booths, a row of tables for two and a room of tables in the back, and an outdoor seating area that wasn’t being used when we were there.

Wildwood specializes in local cooking. Chef-owner Cory Schreiber uses locally grown and organic ingredients wherever possible. He changes his menu daily to take advantage of whatever is fresh at the time. It isn’t a large menu—maybe ten starters and eight entrées—but all the dishes are sophisticated and interesting.

Here’s what we had. To start, Dungeness crab and potato cake and roasted tomato soup. The former was a single large crab cake on an apple and celery root salad, garnished with toasted almonds and a citrus vinaigrette. Delicious. The soup was served hot, and garnished with chives and pecorino croutons. Also delicious. For an entrée Karen had the wood roasted Washington chicken (they have a wood oven in the kitchen, and use it for all sorts of interesting dishes), served with portobello mushrooms and a sweet corn pudding. Bruce had the mesquite roasted Brownsville lamb. It was tender and juicy, served with wine-poached plums and a potato-leek puree. The plums were a surprise, adding a tangy taste to the meal without being mushy.

There were lots of other things we didn’t try. Any pizza out of that wood-burning oven is worth eating, like the pizza with fresh chanterelle mushrooms, herbs, and cheese. The local salmon is delicious. The Washington mussels are, too.

Wildwood’s desserts are superb, things like chocolate cream pie with bananas Foster sauce and toasted cashews. Just typing it makes us want to fly back to Portland immediately.

Wildwood is a culinary jewel of Portland. Chef Cory Schreiber won the 1998 James Beard award for Northwest chef of the year. In 2000, he published a cookbook: Wildwood: Cooking from the Source in the Pacific Northwest. This restaurant is one of the reasons we like to visit Portland.

[ExtraMSG]

$25 fixed price meal at Wildwood is hard to pass up. Here's the complete menu:

STARTERS

* Mizuna gardens salad of seasonal greens with toasted hazelnuts, balsamic vinaigrette, currants and choice of cheese (75 cents extra), goat, blue, or pamesan

* Skillet roasted Washington mussels with garlic, sun dried tomatoes, saffron, and grilled bread

* Soup of the day: White bean and ham hock soup with olive oil croutons

ENTREES

* Mesquite roasted Washington chicken on saffron egg noodles with a green olive and orange tapenade vinaigrette

* Grilled potato "lasagne" with asparagus, goat cheese, and lemon on first crop morels with elephant garlic and sherry vinaigrette

* Clay oven roasted quail basted in rhubarb mustard with toasted walnut Spatzle

DESSERTS

* Chocolate brownie with vanilla bean ice cream and candied walnuts

* Lemon buttermilk tart with whipped cream

* Butterscotch pot de creme with whipped cream and biscotti

My wife and I went there tonight. She ordered the fixed the menu: salad, quail, tart.

The salad was simple and typical for the NW. She got it with chevre. But it was quite balanced with lots of filberts and dried currants.

The quail was my favorite dish that we ate. The spatzle was delicate, not at all gummy, and accented with truffle oil, I think. The quail's skin was nicely seasoned and the basting was delicious, adding tartness/tanginess. I deboned the quail for my wife and tore the extra bits off for her. I got to eat the skin, too, and spent several minutes licking all the yumminess from my hands before I dug into my food. The dish also came with a bed of greens and some grilled scallions. A very balanced, tasty dish.

The tart also came with a rhubarb compote not mentioned on the menu. This was a surprisingly good dessert. Normally I'm not too interested in these sorts of things, but the flavors all went together quite well. The lemon filling itself had a sour-tartness, while the rhubarb had a sweet tartness. Then you had a very good crust and the ability to soften the flavors with whipped cream.

I didn't order an appetizer, although the pizza of fennel salami, dried tomato, green garlic, rapini, and soft pecorino was really calling my name. For my entree I ordered the mushroom and corn bread stuffed pork loin on braised Savoy cabbage with red wine butter sauce ($21). It came with a stack of matchstick-like french fries on top that were fabulously addictive. If McDonald's sold them, I'd have a hard time ever doing low-carb. They were salty and crispy. The loin itself was nicely seasoned (a big problem in even nice restaurants is under seasoning the outside of meats, poultry, and fish, but Wildwood always does this well) and cross-hatched with grill marks. The inside was tender and juicy, not overcooked at all. The stuffing was okay. The cornbread mostly added texture, while the mushrooms created the brown color and earthy flavor. I thought it needed something more, maybe chunks of bacon or seasoned mushrooms or even corn kernels or dried fruit. The cabbage was fine and the sauce was fine, neither especially great, but certainly nothing to complain about.

For dessert I ordered the banana and chocolate puff pastry with dagoba chocolate malt ice cream and oregon walnuts ($6.50). This looked great and sounded good and was recommended by the waiter. But I was disappointed. It was okay, but the bananas were fairly starchy, almost like really ripe plantains. I would have preferred them to be caramelized or maybe grilled and tossed in honey or something like that. With the starchiness of the puff pastry, the starchy bananas just didn't create a balanced flavor. The ice cream was excellent. And I'm not pre-disposed to like chocolate ice creams. The walnuts were roasted and good enough, but their bitterness, with the rather unsweetened chocolate sauce and the starchy banana pastry just furthered the problems I mentioned above. Candied walnuts might have been better. People who don't really like sweets might have liked this more than me. But I wished I'd ordered the panna cotta with dried cherry compote, candied almonds, and vanilla lace cookie.

We sat at the kitchen counter, btw, which is especially fun at Wildwood. The cooks will often interact with you.

I overheard one of the servers say that, "He said the quail is lacking a dimension."

"Who?" asked one of the line cooks.

"Cory."

"He's eating here tonight? Why didn't someone tell me?"

Cory, of course, is Cory Schreiber, owner and executive chef. I spoke up and blurted that, "Cory is wrong!" I thought the quail was very well balanced and didn't need anything more. (I did say the stuffing could have used something more, however.)

You can see over the counter pretty easily and the do most everything there in front of you. On the right is the wood oven and they'll hand stretch pizzas before you and fire mussels. On the left is the grill, typical ovens, and burners. The clay oven is pretty much in the center along with the pastry fixins.

The best looking dish of the night which I wished I had ordered was the Painted Hills flatiron steak with herb-parmesan dumplings, bacon braised greens and balsamic butter ($25). It also came topped with a morel and onion, I think, sautee and what looked like a beef/veal reduction possibly with wine. If the morels had been listed on the menu I would have gotten it. I cursed the customers who ordered it as I heard, "steak mid-well". Medium-well. Why not just order a hamburger you vile, vile people.

Anyway, great dinner as usual from Wildwood. Sit at the counter. Make use of 25 for $25 (er...19 for $25).

[bbqer]

The best looking dish of the night which I wished I had ordered was the Painted Hills flatiron steak with herb-parmesan dumplings, bacon braised greens and balsamic butter ($25). It also came topped with a morel and onion, I think, sautee and what looked like a beef/veal reduction possibly with wine. If the morels had been listed on the menu I would have gotten it. I cursed the customers who ordered it as I heard, "steak mid-well". Medium-well. Why not just order a hamburger you vile, vile people.

Great post and savory descriptions, Nick. Makes me wish I lived in Portland or at least got down there more often.

Your description of the flatiron steak and your desire having seen it made me think of an idea. In this technology-oriented era, when digital cameras and color printers are cheap and abundant, wouldn't it be interesting if more restaurants featured pictures of their evening specials, presented with or included in the day's menu? I often find myself reading descriptions of food and wondering what the plated food looks like. This is why we brazenly stare at others' plates as they are served.

One of the downtown Seattle lunch places I frequent, the Harbor Cafe, has full color photographs of the plated entrees they serve. It not only richly supplements the verbal descriptions, it provides a suggestion of unmentioned ingredients. I dislike bell peppers and it's annoying to find them in something I've ordered when they weren't specifically mentioned. Additionally, it provides a nice bit of visual "sizzle."

[tsquare]

Great reviews - matching my one time only dinner there a few years ago. I also enjoy the cookbook but was wondering if they serve red meat - there are no recipes in the cookbook using beef! (Or have I overlooked something?) Thanks for talking steak - now I know they do.

[lala]

It's so hard to read reveiws like this when I'm chewing my way through my healthy salad at lunch...

Schneier, those wine poached plums intrigue me. Do you remember the details on these? What kind of plums? Were they whole, or cut? Skin on or off? What wine were they poached in?

[duckduck]

Note to self...never order steak when out with Nick...medium-well.