Porto Terra Tuscan Grill & Bar
Portland, OR 97204
Phone: (503) 944-1090
01/30/2008 Posted 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.
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