Beast

We had a wonderful dinner Friday night at Beast. For those of you who are reading the blog carefully, you may remember that Ruth Reichl mentioned that she was eating dinner there the night I heard her speak. It was a great dining experience.

First, the company. There are two tables in the room. Ours seated eight and the other was larger. We were seated with two other couples – two lawyers from Washington, DC and two architects who live here in Portland. Since it’s a prix fixe menu and we all arrived for the 6 p.m. seating, we were all in this together. We seemed to have a lot to talk about so we visited through the entire six-course meal which made it all the more fun.

Second, the food. As I mentioned above, it’s a six-course prix fixe menu with, as they say on their website, “substitutions politely declined”. The good news is that the menu is meat oriented rather than fish which made it more acceptable to Tom. He was a little turned off by what appeared to be attitude but we went anyway and I’m so glad we did. The food was fabulous! We ordered one wine pairing which gave us small glasses matched to each course. I don’t know enough about wine to match specific wines to each course but I can tell when it’s done well and Beast did a great job. I feel like I should just give you the menu since the food was all great:

Chilled curried carrot soup with crème fraiche and spring pea chervil salsa

Charcuterie plate:
Foie-gras bon-bon, sauternes gelee
Steak tartare & quail egg toast
Pork, pork liver, sour cherry & pistachio pate
Chicken liver mousse, maple candied bacon

Lamb loin chop
Smashed red potatoes
Marinated radish & cucumber salad with mint and pinenuts (Tom finished this and he doesn’t like either radishes or cucumbers!)

Arugula salad with strawberries, stilton & aged balsamic vinaigrette

Cheese selection with anise & fleur de sel shortbread, poached fruit, candied hazelnuts

Apricot spice cake with pistachio praline ice cream & rosemary caramel

Candied bacon dipped in chocolate


It was as good as it sounds. I’m so glad we went. http://www.beastpdx.com/