[PDX] Oregonian's Best Restaurants

[ExtraMSG]

http://www.oregonlive.com/dining/reviews.ssf?10843?10843

Let's make a few things clear from the get-go.

You can't see the food. The room's as dark as a planetarium exploring the bare spaces beyond Pluto. Want to read the menu? Pick up the little pinpoint flashlight sitting on your table.

The seats are hard, about as comfortable as getting fired by Donald Trump.

Sound level? Punishing.

Oh, yeah. And the place isn't even finished yet.

But there's nothing provisional about this: At just 3 months old, clarklewis is our Restaurant of the Year for 2004.

The rest aren't really listed, but look under the A&E 2004 heading on this page:

http://www.oregonlive.com/dining/

[ExtraMSG]

Reading through the Vancouver choices and...ugh...I don't know who they have choosing these things but they need to get out more.

Andale? I live near this Mexican-American restaurant and have eaten there on their coupons many times. Very mediocre to bad. And Lindo Mexico isn't more than a mile down the road and is the best Mexican-American I've had in town so far. I'd much rather go to a Chevy's than Andale and Vancouver has one of those, too.

Bacchus gets nods, but I've been there a couple times and have to wonder a) do they know the reviewers are coming in and get someone else to cook?, and b) do the reviewers actually eat there, or just look at the menu, which sounds good, and give them the nod? I had a sauce there that actually offended my palate. It wasn't just so-so, but actively bad. My wife had sturgeon there that tasted like the trash out back of a fish market smells. The pastries are okay, but seem like they're made somewhere else, frozen, and trucked in. The atmosphere has a dual personality of fine dining with wide windows and karaoke bar because the bar section is so open to the restaurant and they get mediocre live music, etc, in there. The staff is unprofessional, too. Rather than fine dining, I think of it as play at fine dining by white trash who haven't experienced enoguh fine dining to know what it would be. It's mean, but I think accurate. And this is coming from someone with a lot of white trash friends and family. It's just not good. Maybe I'll give it *one more try*, but I'd really rather not. I was way too easy on them the first time and thought maybe it was just an off-night and so I went back.

With Roots, a truly good restaurant, opened up on the east side, there's not much point. I'd rather go back there. They might be the best restaurant in Vancouver and one of the few that could compete with Portland's top neighborhood places like Lauro and Fife. Other much better restaurants trying to do the same thing: Applewood and Hudson's in Heathman Lodge. I'd much rather go to Beaches, too.

I think I'd have more to say, but the page crashed on me and now I can't access the dining page, which leads me to....

One more thing: Oregonlive.com sucks ass, big time. It's slow, difficult to find what you're looking for, crashes on me occasionally, and has a billion noisy popups.

[SimplySandy]

Has anyone been to clarklewis and want to share their review? I'm curious to know if you had the same experience as protrayed in the Oregonian.

[ExtraMSG]

Sandy, here's a link to Jim Dixon's post on clarklewis:

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...7&hl=clarklewis

Here's the Willamette Week's review:

http://www.wweek.com/story.php?story=4870

Here's the Tribune's:

http://www.portlandtribune.com/archview.cgi?id=22926

[mamster]

For whatever reason, the Oregonian has the worst newspaper web site I've ever come across. By far. Which is too bad, because I'd like to keep up with their food coverage.

[ExtraMSG]

I think it's some out-of-the-box system used by several other newspapers as well. Whatever it is, it certainly does suck. Compare it to the Portland Tribune's, which certainly has less traffic, but is quite speedy.