Has anybody been to "Portal"?

[Clerkenwellian]

...it opened up a couple of weeks ago on the old Cafe Lazeez site. The website says it's a "French restaurant with strong Portuguese and Mediterranean influences". The menu looks not dissimilar to the Zetter over the road.

I haven't seen any reviews - has anybody been?

[silverbrow]

I haven't been it but did walk past and checked out the menu. Frankly I think it looks horrendous. Whoever wrote the menu clearly took great delight in using as many words as possible that people would not understand. It made it look thoroughly pretentious and unappetising. The menu on the website looks relatively sane compared to the one I saw in the window, but even on this one it refers to "braised chanfana,", er anyone any clue what that is?

Frankly it looks like the type place where the chef has got a bit overexcited with what he's able to order from suppliers and then realised he's got to cook it all.

Having said all that, I haven't eaten a morsel there and it might be delicious. For the record, I don't think it is like Zetter, which tends to have a far more Italian influenced menu.

I thought that Pho, a new vietnamese restaurant a few doors south of Portal looked far more interesting.

[Almass]

"braised chanfana"

A Portugese dish of braised Lamb/Goat...marinated in red wine...etc

[Almass]

WoW, your post about Portal being a French restaurant with strong Portuguese and Mediterranean influences" made me curious enough to visit the site to understand more how a French restaurant lives with Portugese and Med influence!

http://www.portalrestaurant.co.uk/food.menu.htm

Well it looks more of a "Fusion" thingy as they also have a Japanese/Chinese items: - Tofu and shitake mushrooms in filo pastry, vegetable chow mein.

The Frenchy stuff is, of course, Foie Gras - Madeira sauce - Bearnaise sauce...etc.

Menu is really more fusion than anything and why the vegy soup on the menu? Nothing special here.

I am intrigued to try:

- Bacalhau confit with houmous

- Chocolate semi cuit, crème fraiche and chilli anglaise, white chocolate ice cream.

Why say Chocolate semi cuit... maybe it should be only Chocolat semi cuit, but then again it is hairy when you start mixing languages in the same dish name.

Maybe it deserves a visit to at least try the Fried banana raviolis, hazelnut ice cream, rum and raisin sauce!

[Clerkenwellian]

I haven't been it but did walk past and checked out the menu.  Frankly I think it looks horrendous.  Whoever wrote the menu clearly took great delight in using as many words as possible that people would not understand.  It made it look thoroughly pretentious and unappetising.  The menu on the website looks relatively sane compared to the one I saw in the window, but even on this one it refers to "braised chanfana,", er anyone any clue what that is?

Frankly it looks like the type place where the chef has got a bit overexcited with what he's able to order from suppliers and then realised he's got to cook it all.

Having said all that, I haven't eaten a morsel there and it might be delicious.  For the record, I don't think it is like Zetter, which tends to have a far more Italian influenced menu.

I thought that Pho, a new vietnamese restaurant a few doors south of Portal looked far more interesting.

←

I had a decent but unexceptional bowl of noodles in Pho a few days back, but I have to make allowance for the fact that the restaurant was new and I was somewhat worse for wear. Will certainly go again.

[Izabel_blue]

I just walked down St. John this lunchtime-- there was not a soul in Portal but Pho was packed! A friend and I checked out Pho last week and it was nothing exceptional but decent quality Vietnamese standards. I was happy to have a nice bowl of Prawn 'Bun' noodles and one of those lovely Vietnamese iced coffees....

[Clerkenwellian]

The place gets a pretty poor review in yesterday's Standard.