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Urban Farmer, at the soon to be opened the Nines Portland restaurant/hotel, is slowly building a buzz of publicity. I managed to pretend I belonged and walked in a few months ago, but of course it wasn’t anywhere near finished. Now they have started with an employees dinner, to which Lance Mayhew over at the My Life on the Rocks blog managed to get invited. It is quite interesting – sort of classic hotel meets NW cuisine. The prices aren’t for the faint of heart, but that won’t keep me away.
Some menu items that caught my eye: Roasted porcinis with bone marrow, 4 dishes featuring mushrooms: porcinis, cauliflower, hen of the woods, and king trumpets; a 12 0z American Wagyu New York strip $102, trotters, etc.
What the heck is “Angels on Horseback”?
Angels on Horseback=oysters wrapped in bacon
Then I think it should be Angels on Hogback!
Since when is Painted Hills beef considered grass fed , from my knowledge that beef is finished on corn or grain before it is processed. You would of thought the chef of this restaurant would have done his research before putting this on his menu?
It’s nice to see La Quercia on the menu! Great stuff. The rest of the menu looks good too. There’s a nice balance of comfort and ambition.
When I was a 9 year old at summer camp in 1962, an” Angel on Horseback” was a hotdog slit and stuffed with cheddar cheese wrapped in bacon and cooked on a stick over a cmpfire.
stellaoks, I want that right now!
this may sound bitchy, but here goes anyway – i find something deeply cynical about the name “Urban Farmer”, which conjures up the image of a casual & essential dining experience, not a dinner at a hotel restaurant that will charge an amount of money for a steak that could feed a family for a month in many parts of the world. It just feels deeply inauthentic.
“It just feels deeply inauthentic.”
Its more than inauthentic — its orwellian.
Jeez. It is what it is. It’s a hotel restaurant. It needn’t be deeply authentic to satisfy the needs of expense account travelers.
This is the typical Portland reaction to any attempt at high end service and polish, it extends to architecture as well. Many things we do in this country cost a small fortune by other standards, ie a theater production costs thousands of dollars that could be used to fund clean water for dying children in Southeast Asia, does that mean we should stop creating Art or attempting to have a “luxury” restaurant or any of a number of amenities?
Maybe we should wait and taste the food and visit before we conclude it is “inauthentic” before it even opens!
Y’know Nikos,
I don’t think that ‘the typical Portland reaction’ is such a bad thing.
And I would not compare a theater production to my own high priced meal.
Eat and drink for your own pleasure and satisfaction.
But, at least, thank your lucky stars, and your own hard work,
and wonder what else could have been bought
had you just had a burger.
I just had a burger, but it cost 32 dollars (someone snuck fois gras in!) Besides, it’s worth posting, just to prompt some good Sidemeat haiku !
Oops, I meant foie gras, not fois, sorry french speakers!
it came with fries?
or, at that price point, pomme frites?
heck, add a twelve dollar draft beer,
you got a meal!
I have never met Nikos, but I appreciate his/her steady injection of reality, which is a rare commodity in these parts. :)
Maybe I’m dense but I just do not understand the cultural connection between architecture, theater, the arts and a steak restaurant.
Me neither, but if I had an expense account I’m sure I would enjoy myself. I can’t wait to check out the Nines.
The atrium at the Nines looked gorgeous today. By the way, there is an extensive article about Portland in the November Gourmet and I quote “There’s a real sense that Portland today is to the culinary arts what Paris was to the visual arts one hundred years ago”! Pretty high praise (yes, a high level food scene is part of culture, as much as Architecture seattle_light)
Come on … Portland is not Paris … there is no comparison in food, visual arts, architecture or anything else.
Things really go down hill when we start believing our own PR. Portland is often accused of being “self-congratulatory” and this is why.
Let’s not all pile on so quickly – how about a bit of critical thinking, try it for yourself, see what is still open in a year or two.
When does Urban Farmer open?
It is open now.