The citywide restaurant deal known as Portland Dining Month is back with participating venues offering three courses for $29 throughout March. The list is strong and long, featuring 100-odd restaurants and breweries, providing an opportunity to experiment or try out some of the spendier places in town for (relatively) cheap. Some establishments have just the one offering—not necessarily a bad thing, but if you’re planning to check out Cocotte (which you should if you haven’t) you’d better enjoy chicken liver mousse and a plate of snails. Urban Fondue wins for the most extensive choice (there’s about a dozen things on their menu), though most places will limit you to two or three. There may also be special beer or wine pairings available.
I generally try to seek out places where I can get the most bang for my buck—Boke Bowl is great, but for the same price I can get entry to Paley’s Place or Departure (though even at the high end you want to keep an eye for the mixed green salad and other uninspired dishes—Dining Month should be a time for a restaurant to show off its cooking, not to feed mouths as cheaply as possible). There’s a full list of participating restaurants here, but these are a few I’ll be looking to check out:
St. Jack – It’s a good opportunity to try their northwest spot (if you haven’t already), and their menu has a nice face off between a Lyonnaise onion tarte and a housemade blood sausage. 1610 NW 23rd
Remedy Wine Bar – Though primarily a wine bar, the cooking here is remarkably good and the sample menu looks ridiculously enticing: A fennel soup with chive gremolata and Pernod and milk soaked croutons as a choice to start, and a main of chicken confit with pickled mushrooms, roasted fingerling potatoes, tarragon and juniper berry. 733 NW Everett
Laurelhurst Market – The butcher’s shop that’s a restaurant may be offering shoulder—one of the more inexpensive beef cuts—for its main, but it is braised for 10 hours and accompanied with potato pancake and warm oyster mushroom salad. 3155 E Burnside
Imperial – It’s Vitaly Paley’s concept but Top Chef hero Doug Adams is at the helm and has this to offer: Cola and Pabst Blue Ribbon-braised pork. Enough said. 410 SW Broadway
Aviary – Thoughtful cooking with a choice that includes (a mind boggling) Dungeness crab chawanmushi with bone marrow and sea urchin, miso-braised beef short rib with taro root and Asian pear, and seared salmon with cauliflower, saffron, green apple and American caviar. 1733 NE Alberta St
(Note, for all reservations made through Open Table, a donation will be made to the Oregon Food Bank.)
