PortlandFoodAndDrink.com offers reviews of Portland area bars and restaurants.
Title
An Exploration of Portland Food and Drink
Description
Why This Site?
Portland Food and Drink was born out of increasing discomfort with the timbre of reviews in the Portland area. It seemed like any restaurant received a great review in the Portland press, even those that were considered by many in town to be a complete failure. There were so many positive accolades, I found myself spending evenings discussing the phenomenon with friends in the industry. It just didn’t’ make sense.
Fast-forward to late 2004. I had read a positive review of a Jamaican restaurant, and invited a group of friends to dinner. What occurred here went something like this: Once we sat down, we waited 10 minutes to get our menus. After another ten minute break, another waiter came to take our order. Twenty minutes later, the entrees arrived, except for one small problem. “Excuse me sir,” said the server. “We ran out of the entrée you ordered tonight. Is there something else you would like to order?” Keep in mind, at this point everyone else at the table was eating their entrees.
The food was average at best, but the service was bad enough to qualify as a floor show. After finishing our entrees, it took 20 minutes for our server to clear the plates. We threw caution to the wind and ordered desserts, which also took considerable time to arrive. By this time most of the other tables had left (two walked out without paying because they were so disgusted with the wait, and no one noticed them leaving). What were the servers doing? Mostly walking up and down the street outside – in clear view of all the diners – while talking on their cell phones and smoking something that, let’s just say, was not ordinary cigarettes. Every so often one would wander back in the door, and while passing a table full of dirty dishes, they would pick up a single fork, or a water glass, and then disappear back into the kitchen for a while. It all made for interesting discussion with other tables as we debated what would happen next. Needless to say, we saved quite a bit of money on the tip.
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