Taste on 23rd (Northwest Portland)
food: 5/5
experience: 5/5
overall: 5/5
A friend of ours moved to Oregon City in 2016 and we hadn't seen her since. We remembered she was a fan of tapas, though, so I suggested a couple tapas places and we landed on this one. Taste on 23rd. It's in a kinda bougie part of town that is reminiscent of Carmel, with lots of boutiques and yoga studios and stuff.
The restaurant is inside what looks like a townhouse, on top of a tea shop (yes, also a lot of these around here). We seated ourselves at a high-top table. Our friend started off with a tall blackberry hard cider.
Their wine list is extensive. It is a wine bar, after all. The small plates are secondary to the wine. They were holding a wine tasting while we ate, as a matter of fact. Their food menu is small but executed perfectly. We tried some of the highlights. Two types of bruschetta, burrata, and mac & cheese. We finished off with a dessert.
The cherry jam brie bruschetta came out first. The sweet yet tart cherries were a perfect complement to the slices of French brie on top. The bread is very crusty which I don't prefer - I like a fluffier bread. It's more like crostini. Next came the second bruschetta, with apple garlic butter and melted cheddar.
This resembled a pizza except instead of tomato sauce, it was essentially applesauce underneath. The apple flavor was mild but added a hint of sweetness. The cheddar was nice and sharp. Again, the bread is very crusty and crunchy.
Next up was the burrata, which came with focaccia and an apple-pear compote.
The owner came up to us as soon as this arrived and said this was his favorite dish on the menu. We tried it and we agreed (well, I did, until the next "course" came). This is a stringy ball of mozzarella with burrata cheese curds inside, somehow. It's so, so fresh and so, so creamy and delicious. You don't even need the fruit. Or the focaccia for that matter. Just get your fork and dig in.
Then came... the mac. The mac and cheese, with curlicue pasta (cavatappi, I believe), my favorite.
So creamy and cheesy and savory and all things win. This was the best, hands down. Even better than the dessert, which we ordered after we took a little break to let our appetites catch up.
The house version of s'mores, made with a graham cracker waffle, toasted marshmallow ice cream and drizzled with chocolate syrup. I mean, chocolate syrup...this was my favorite part of the dish to be honest. I'm a sucker for chocolate. But that ice cream was really good too. The marshmallow taste isn't overpowering; it mostly tastes like vanilla bean with a toasty flavor. And the graham waffle was pretty crispy too. Hard to cut with a spoon...but nonetheless, it tasted good with the chocolate sauce and ice cream atop. A nice little dessert to round out the evening.
Not to be missed: their cheese plates. While we didn't get one, as you read, their cheese is fabulous. They have about ten different selections on any given day. You can get two for fifteen, four for $29, or six for $43. That is a dessert unto itself.
Can't have wine without cheese, amiright or amiright?
experience: 5/5
overall: 5/5
A friend of ours moved to Oregon City in 2016 and we hadn't seen her since. We remembered she was a fan of tapas, though, so I suggested a couple tapas places and we landed on this one. Taste on 23rd. It's in a kinda bougie part of town that is reminiscent of Carmel, with lots of boutiques and yoga studios and stuff.
The restaurant is inside what looks like a townhouse, on top of a tea shop (yes, also a lot of these around here). We seated ourselves at a high-top table. Our friend started off with a tall blackberry hard cider.
Their wine list is extensive. It is a wine bar, after all. The small plates are secondary to the wine. They were holding a wine tasting while we ate, as a matter of fact. Their food menu is small but executed perfectly. We tried some of the highlights. Two types of bruschetta, burrata, and mac & cheese. We finished off with a dessert.
The cherry jam brie bruschetta came out first. The sweet yet tart cherries were a perfect complement to the slices of French brie on top. The bread is very crusty which I don't prefer - I like a fluffier bread. It's more like crostini. Next came the second bruschetta, with apple garlic butter and melted cheddar.
This resembled a pizza except instead of tomato sauce, it was essentially applesauce underneath. The apple flavor was mild but added a hint of sweetness. The cheddar was nice and sharp. Again, the bread is very crusty and crunchy.
Next up was the burrata, which came with focaccia and an apple-pear compote.
The owner came up to us as soon as this arrived and said this was his favorite dish on the menu. We tried it and we agreed (well, I did, until the next "course" came). This is a stringy ball of mozzarella with burrata cheese curds inside, somehow. It's so, so fresh and so, so creamy and delicious. You don't even need the fruit. Or the focaccia for that matter. Just get your fork and dig in.
Then came... the mac. The mac and cheese, with curlicue pasta (cavatappi, I believe), my favorite.
So creamy and cheesy and savory and all things win. This was the best, hands down. Even better than the dessert, which we ordered after we took a little break to let our appetites catch up.
The house version of s'mores, made with a graham cracker waffle, toasted marshmallow ice cream and drizzled with chocolate syrup. I mean, chocolate syrup...this was my favorite part of the dish to be honest. I'm a sucker for chocolate. But that ice cream was really good too. The marshmallow taste isn't overpowering; it mostly tastes like vanilla bean with a toasty flavor. And the graham waffle was pretty crispy too. Hard to cut with a spoon...but nonetheless, it tasted good with the chocolate sauce and ice cream atop. A nice little dessert to round out the evening.
Not to be missed: their cheese plates. While we didn't get one, as you read, their cheese is fabulous. They have about ten different selections on any given day. You can get two for fifteen, four for $29, or six for $43. That is a dessert unto itself.
Can't have wine without cheese, amiright or amiright?
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