05/09/09

Wonderful restaurant, a gem of italian food!

by Ginolive

The food was fantastic, tasty, different. They had very good deals on there "specials" section of their website, perfect if spending an evening downtown and great if you just want to try them out. They had a special related to the symphony crowd, having a special coursed dinner at about the time you would eat before you would go to a symphony or some other activity for the evening. We did that special the first time because we actually went to a symphony, and again the following week, just because it was a wonderful meal at a great special price!

I would recommend this to anyone who wants great tuscan italian. To anyone who hasn't tried true Italian dishes and have stuck with franchises (Olive Garden, Macaroni Grill, et al.) prepare to be AMAZED. Pasta is made from scratch! No prepackage dried pasta noodles. Try to get that in any franchise. And the amount of salad and seafood oriented dishes would please anyone, along with pleasing the steak lover also of course. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.

I am relatively new in Portland (8 months) and have tried a LOT of Italian in my short time here. What surprises me is even the locally owned places try to emulate the predone/over-processed concept that the franchises have done. Over sauced, over generic, over americanized Italian food. Italian food is not: pasta+thick sauce+lotta cheese+bread. It is so much more, and this is the first place that has shown me that. Fresh = Italian. This place has it.

• Pros: Great selection, very nice italian, must try!
• Cons: None I could see.

06/05/08

Fantastic, tasty

by ThomasBak

Went to the Porto Terra for the first time. The menu sounded great and the reviews were great so thought I would try it out for myself. The was a lot to choose from. For appetizer we got the carpaccio and the polenta. Very very good. They had a lot of great sounding salads and pastas but I went for the filet mignon and scallops. Wife went for the gnocchi. Both were so good, we shared each others plates, I probably took more then my fair share from her. We will be back soon. Loved the food, loved the wine!

01/30/08

Great Food!

by CarlosT

I was happy to see a wide selection of Italian dishes I don't see too often. There are far too many places out there that seem to think Italian is just pasta, lots of cheese, and thick red sauce or white alfredo sauce. My belly was excited to see real Italian oriented dishes and sides. I was originally going to go with the duck, which had a orange cherry sauce that sounded delicious, but ended up getting a pasta. I originally thought that pasta was the last thing I would try, since every Italian place I've been to thats usually the focus, and I've tried them all. Or so I thought, because there were some that had a new twist to them or even ones I never heard of. I ended up with the bolognese. Incredible flavor and different than your usual idea of Italian. Not to say this isn't Italian, this is just the Italian you've haven't been introduced to yet! Wife had the gorgonzola pasta, and aside from the obvious there was also walnuts and bacon in it. It was very good too. The homemade fresh pastas are really good, you can really tell the difference. There were other entrees that looked good to both of us, we plan on going back for sure.

For appetizer, we had the calamari and prawns lemoncello (no, we couldn't eat everything but wanted to). Both were great which raises my eyebrow when I read a previous review concerning the marinara sauce for the calamari. Ours tasted like it was just made, fresh tomatoes and herbs. It was slightly sweet, slighty spicy. It was homemade and fresh. I think when people get used to premanufactured food items, thats how they think they are supposed to be. Its not supposed to be really thick filler sauces, machine breaded cheese sticks and fried items with way to much breading. The breading isn't supposed to hide the flavor of whatever is being breaded, unlike what most american italian franchises think. Our calamari was perfect. Just enough breading to complement the taste of the calamari along with the sauces. Great restaurant!

• Pros: Food is delicious! Selection! Real Italian.
• Cons: Nothing I can think of.