Best Wine List:
1. Carafe
2. Noble Rot
3. Higgins
Food Dude’s Vote: Higgins
Best Service:
1. Paley’s (by a landslide)
2. Carlyle
3. Park Kitchen
Food Dude’s Vote: Park Kitchen
Worst Service: (you knew this would be next)
1. Nostrana (by a landslide)
2. clarklewis
3. Fenouil
Food Dude’s Vote: Nostrana
I Don’t Know How This Place Stays in Business!
1. Hurleys
2. Nostrana
3. Fenouil
Food Dude’s Vote: Fenouil
Restaurant Closing in 2006 that I miss the Most:
1. Gotham (another landslide)
2. Ripe
3. Basilico
Food Dude’s Vote: Gotham
I’m Embarrassed to Admit I Eat Here!
1. Burgerville (personally, I wouldn’t find this all that embarrassing)
2. Taco Bell
3. Red Robin
Food Dude’s Vote: Taco Bell. After drinks. Walking of course. Late at night. Everything else is closed.
Best Place for Indulgence:
1. Pix
No one else statistically close
Carafe, best wine list?! I don’t even know how to reply to that.
Iorio! Has anyone else been there? Our group was pleasantly surprised. Good food, service and reasonable. Not arty or pretentious but comfortable and pleasant. I’m looking forward to the next visit.
Hunter: My personal vote was not for Carafe either, but why do you think everyone that voted for it was so wrong? Its list may not be encyclopedic in volume or have the pop and pizazz of those offering 15-year verticals of “big name” wines, but I’m consistently impressed with their wines by the glass and bottle as solid “food wines” (i.e. not the highly extracted, high alcohol fruit bombs that tend to garner tons of press, but also tend to flop with food) at reasonable prices.
Given that food is the focus of most restaurants (well, not at Hooters; or at a few other more reputable places come to think of it…), I’m a fan of those that actually select wines that work with their main product. I’m curious to know what’s so wrong with Carafe’s list and who you’d prefer to see up on the top 3.
Iorio? I don’t know why this is mentioned here but we had a terrible meal there. Admittedly the pasta was pretty good; the rest was not very good at all.
If everything else is closed and Taco Bell is the only option I’d go home and make some eggs. Call me. I’ll make you some eggs.
Given that food is the focus of most restaurants (well, not at Hooters…
You take that back!!! :)
Food dude – how are you walking up to a taco bell late night? Which one? The one in NW is drive up only late at night, isnt it? McDonalds is unfortunately the only walkup option….
Carafe best wine list? Its not a bad list, but it never even entered my mind for best as a candidate. While a lot of folks will say eating out is all about the food, sometimes this isn’t entirely true. I think dining out is about the entire experience and the wine plays a huge role. I’ve had plenty of meals where the food is excellent only to find a pathetic wine list, or order a wine that lets the food down. While this doesn’t ruin the food, it leaves the wholeness of the experience incomplete, and when paying triple-digits for a meal I want every ounce of pleasure I can get. When I’m dining out, I’m all in and that includes the wine. That’s why I think Gino’s has the best list. Is the food the best? Hardly. But, you know what you’re getting and it’s excellent for what it is. I’ve had so many great dining experiences there with friends because its not pretentious, we know what to expect, the food is very good, its a neighborhood place, its an excellent value, and the wine list kicks ass. We actually sit around and enjoy ourselves instead of sitting around critiquing a restaurant throughout the entire meal, and if you just want to go out and have a good time, good food, and great wine, check out Gino’s. I know the food isn’t the most exciting, but its certainly satisfying, and the wine list is the best I’ve seen in Portland — for years. I know there are no Northwest bottles, but the list (which is really a book) is broken up by varietal and country. Plus, there are many wines offered in multiple vintages, so if you’ve ever wanted to try a vertical of say Vieux Telegraphe, or Biale Zin, this is the place to be. Plus there’s always a page of reds and whites for $25 or less, and they’re all quality.
Sean, perhaps it’s how I define “best”. I see it as a superlative, better than all others. I like Carafe… a lot, and I have always been able to find a glass of wine to go with my tartare. But the “best”? I cannot believe it’s the best in either quantity or quality, extracted fruit bombs or not.
Carafe: “Best Wine List”
Wow! Thank you all for your votes! My wife Julie (who writes the list) and I are thrilled of the recognition. Even though our goal is not to have the best list in Portland, we take a lot of pride and time to make it a list that is affordable and pairs well with our menu. We do all we can to introduce wines to our clientele that are little known as well as coming mostly from small producers from France and the NW at very fair prices. We love wine! We want everyone to be excited about it and love to share what we enjoy. Please remember that now all our wines are available for retail.
It sure beats showing up in the “I Don’t Know How This Place Stays in Business” category!
There no pretense at Carafe. We just love what we do and appreciate all the fun people who come share our passion everyday.
FD: you’re right. The list at Higgins kicks ass!
Thanks all!
About Nostrana: We went there the other night–had a good meal and pretty good service. Is this an aberration? We’re planning to go back this week–7 of us including 2 kids. Should we re-think this? Just wondering after reading about the poor service.
Hunter: Fair points all. I took your original comment as a slam against the list, not just a little surpise that it was numero uno to so many.
provecho: Maybe Nostrana has, after all this time, finally started to turn the corner in the front of the house. But after four visits, all with problems, I gave up on the place about 6 months ago. Maybe a larger party will command more attention and attention to detail–or maybe it will juts magnify the probs. Please report back on your experience.
Sorry about that. I can’t fault a list on which I can always find a glass. I will always love Pascal if only for his fois gras (and tartare). It’s the superlative status that took me aback.
It kind of freaks me out that I have had such different experiences than others with regard to service. We made Fenuoil a semi-regular place because we loved the service. We had such horrible service at Park Kitchen that we haven’t been back, even though we really liked the food. Our service at Carlyle was average, at best. The service at Paley’s has always been great for us, however. :)
We tend to eat late. I wonder if we would get better service earlier (when the servers are less tired), or worse service (because the restaurants are more crowded)?
We went to Nostrana a few weeks ago… me and my son. We walked in, no one was at the hostess station. She finally comes over and asks us how many… then, I couldn’t believe what I saw. She then proceeds to get into a discussion with a fellow co-worker about a table for eight and how they are going to handle it–for literally TWO MINUTES–with our menus in her hand as we sat there with nothing to do but listen to their discussion. They came to an understanding about the table for 8 which was coming in 2 hours later, and then she turned to me and said, “OK, let’s go,” and led us to our table. Our table had NOTHING to do with this problem they were having, and she very easily could have sat us and then come back to discuss this other problem. It was indicative of people who have no business “hostessing”… very very poor treatment.
Count out two minutes and imagine standing there having to listen to their behind the scenes discussion.
Well, our party of seven went to Nostrana last night and had, at best, a “mixed” experience. Our table was ready, we were seated right away (the restaurant was half-empty at 8 p.m.), but service went downhill from there. Not that we didn’t get prompt service, just that it was of the my-shift-is-almost-over-will-you-please-eat-and-leave variety. Trying to rush us into ordering, at least 3 times, not asking if we wanted anything more, no dessert menu until we managed to ask for one. Even the food disappointed–a blah rotisserie(?) guinea hen, a potato, pancetta, rosemary pizza with no flavor except way too much rosemary. Other pizzas, scallop pasta and tagliata were good. In our party was a restaurant owner, a waitress and a cook. They were in agreement that we won’t be back. Their theory is that service is always worse when the restaurant is half empty. Don’t know if that’s any explanation.
An update: We went to Carlyle last night and had good service. We really enjoyed the food, too. Perhaps sitting in the dining room rather than the bar area helped.