Dorianne and I spent Easter weekend in Portland, Oregon, staying downtown at the Westin Hotel. This post is an overview of the food and wine experiences of our weekend. I realize that we only experienced a sampling of what this great city has to offer.

Upon arrival at the Westin Hotel (LINK) on Friday, we were greeted with a wine tasting in the hotel lobby. ENSO (LINK), an Urban Winery featuring varietals and blends sourced from Oregon, California, and Washington. The tasting featured a white blend, a 2012 Counoise (unusual for these parts), and a red blend. All were very drinkable, especially the red blend which had low acidity and a very smooth viscosity. The Counoise was heavier and more viscous, with nice notes of red fruit and a hint of minerality.

After chatting with Kimberly Parks, the Enso Wine Club Coordinator and a number of other hotel guests about wine and travel, it was time to go upstairs and change for our dinner reservation at Jake’s Famous Crawfish (LINK), a member of the Landry’s Group. We walked the four block from our hotel in the crisp evening weather, passing the iconic Portland Food Trucks surrounding the park nearby (almost all closed at night).

Jake’s is that quintessential downtown seafood house – lots of wood, excellent and experienced servers, a long menu of selections and a great wine list. We ordered a bottle of Ponzi Pinot Gris (LINK) (LINK to NOTES), one of the better known Willamette Valley (LINK) producers. We were not disappointed – light and crisp with balanced acidity, mushrooms on the nose, and pear and pepper on the palate. A very nice wine. It went well with our Kamiai oysters, with Dorianne’s halibut and with my horseradish encrusted steelhead. It was a wonderful meal in a great atmosphere – not really adventurous, but solid and everyone knew what they were doing.

Lunch on Saturday at Bamboo Sushi SW (LINK), one of four in Portland, for some really excellent food accompanied by a Sapporo draft beer. The lunch specials here are really a great value. We spent the afternoon on a city tour with good friends David Alexander and Patience Muanza and her son, Josh. The tour included walking along 23rd Street in Nob Hill (LINK) and sampling some food (dessert!) and a flight of Willamette Pinot Noirs at Papa Hayden Café (LINK).

Dinner on Saturday was with good friends Laura Berman and Craig Benelli (LINK) at Luc Lac Vietnamese Kitchen (LINK), a very busy place with more of a Portland feel to it. Crowded – with a system where you wait in line, order, then wait for a table, and they bring you your food – and loud, it was a fun evening very different from our other dinners in town. The Pho was great. Luc Lac has wines by the glass or 1/2 bottle only (!); we discovered a very nice Rosé from Tavel (LINK), the only AOP in France that produces only rosé wines. As an added bonus, we ran into Dorianne’s nephew, Brian Nelson and his wife, Krista, from LA.

Sunday we went to the New Thought Center for Spiritual Living (LINK) in Lake Oswego for Easter service, where Rev. Dr. David Alexander presides over a large and vibrant spiritual community. Then off to lunch/brunch at St. Honoré Boulangerie (LINK) near the lake. Amazing baked goods – very French – and wonderful sandwiches accompanied by a French Pinot Gris made for a nice repast.

After a relaxing afternoon of napping and surfing the web in our hotel room it was time for what would become the highlight of our Portland visit, food and wine wise. Our dinner reservations at Veritable Quandry (LINK), was a very special experience indeed. A friend recommended it to us (we had already made reservations) and noted that her brother, Matt, works there.  Matt made us feel very welcome indeed, as did our excellent server, but it is Chef Annie Cuggino who is the star of this show. The food was simply excellent – no other word will do. A wine list that is appropriately heavily Oregon-centric but with a good number of other global wine regions represented, rounded out a marvelous dining experience.

Located in a lovely garden-style building of brick and steel near the river on the edge of downtown, Veritable Quandry is a local gem and has been since 1971. The garden seating is closed now, but we were seated at a table next to a floor to ceiling window. The long bar is also inviting – you pass by it as you enter. I was tempted to order a cocktail, but that wine list was simply too inviting. We selected a 2007 Stone Mountain Vineyard Reserve Willamette Valley Pinot Noir (LINK) from a list of about three dozen Oregon Pinots. It was an amazing wine – smooth, peppery, light enough to accompany Dorianne’s trout and enough body to hold up to my pork chop in a cider and ale sauce. Then house made sorbets and an Inniskillin Ice Wine for dessert. A truly delicious meal in every respect.

The sad news: Veritable Quandry is slated to close in the next several months – the city is taking the land for a new court house and the owner has decided not to relocate. So get here soon! Some photos of the meal experience are above.

As we depart Portland after this short visit, I know that we will return – there is too much left undone and some things we want to experience again!