Veritable
Quandary,
1220 SW 1st Ave. 227-7342
Lunch and dinner. Kids rare. Moderate-expensive.
Picks: wild mushroom and warm spinach salad, bresaola
and bluet jacquin, grilled Black Angus ribeye, roast chicken
stuffed with wild mushrooms, osso buco, chocolate Nocello
soufflé
Nice touch: Splendid urban garden in warm weather,
ambience combines a gregarious bar scene with a big-city bistro.
I confess it had been years since I'd wandered into the Veritable
Quandary--a restaurant whose name I love next only to that
of a Parisian tea room, A Priori-Thé. I had remembered
the venerable V.Q. as a watering hole for city planners, attorneys,
assorted downtown shakers, sainted hipsters and demonic artists
of many stripes. Indeed, even now you must push your way past
the bar and through a gauntlet of the latest generation of
star-gazers and earth-movers, under the watchful eye of a
ship's figurehead still occupying a place of honor on the
wall beside the long bar. In some ways not much has changed:
The city's most urban garden is intact, with its great trees
and stone tables; the interior brick walls stand in defiance
of time, covered with a splendid collection of eclectic art
and contrasting handsomely with dark brown wainscoting and
well-trodden wooden floors, and the subtle lighting still
flatters you into thinking that cosmetic surgery is the least
necessary indulgence conceived by mankind.
But so much has changed. The V.Q. has suddenly, and with
minimal fanfare, metamorphosed into an outstanding restaurant.
Buzzing with metropolitan sophistication, it has quickly
become one of the best places in town for a straightforward,
eminently satisfying bistro dinner. Those who remember its
fare of burgers and the like will be immensely and happily
surprised at the transformation. The solid, fairly lengthy
menu changes frequently enough--some items daily, in fact--to
encourage return visits, which is exactly what I plan to
do, now shorn of obligation to try any particular dish.
The menu is full of interesting, generously portioned plates,
starting with terrific composed salads keyed to the weather,
and a range of hearty grills and roasted meats. The combinations
are well-conceived, the presentations pretty and unfussy,
and the flavors full and satisfying.
The outstanding starter is a roasted wild mushroom and
spinach salad with local blue cheese, the vinaigrette headily
flavored with pancetta. This salad is echt Oregon, a nice
way of getting your greens and indulging in a more primal
forest palate. Wild mushrooms of several varieties show
up across the menu, each time in a different vein. A bountiful
plate of grilled eggplant and portobellos melds into warm
mozzarella, set off by the astringency of fresh capers and
olives and splashed with balsamico. A seasonal treat of
gnocchi stuffed with purée of pumpkin and bathed
in a silken sauce of shallots and gorgonzola, spiked with
toasted walnuts, is utterly delicious, making you wonder
why every post-Halloween pumpkin isn't put to such good
use. Though it seems more a summer dish, a seviche with
a medley of seafood is done perfectly, with just enough
citrus juice to "cook" the seafood but not so much as to
out-acidify the fennel, peppers and onions tucked into the
accompanying wild greens. One of the most unusual starters
comprises bresaola and bleuet jacquin with grilled bread.
Bresaola is an air-dried, salted beef that's aged for several
months; sliced paper-thin, and drizzled with olive oil and
lemon, this specialty of Lombardy is more delicate than
prosciutto and blends with the relatively mild blue cheese
from the Loire Valley for a perfect European Community marriage.
If it's on the menu and you can convince your dinner partner
to share a grilled Black Angus ribeye for two, leap to it.
Spread lavishly across a huge platter, set off by grilled
torpedo onions and oozing a slightly sweet and juicy pepper
butter, this steak is the Platonic version. The potatoes
are equally state-of-the-art, molten gold beaten almost
to a froth. (In another night's preparation, a Black Angus
strip steak arrives slathered with a very perky tapenade
and ringed with all the right root vegetables of the day.)
For those hewing lightly to the sea, a rainbow trout curls
across a 10-inch plate, wrapped darkly in a crisp pancetta
and stuffed with wild mushrooms and spinach. The fish is
so plump, literally bursting to the gills, it's a gift that
never stops giving.
For some time, osso buco has been the V.Q.'s signature
dish, the strongest and most red-blooded among its offerings.
I scooped several heaping tablespoons of marrow from the
bones, serendipity beyond the meat clinging to the shanks.
The tender, drop-from-the-bones beef is not overwhelmed
by the tomatoes or the red wine, and everything remains
in balance for an almost creamy sauce. The risotto accompanying
the "bone with a hole" is beautifully cooked; my only complaint--a
mild one--is the lack of gremolada (a garnish of garlic,
parsley and grated lemon peel) served with the osso buco,
something that normally adds herbal pungency to the dish.
Even a simple roast chicken here seems inspired, intensely
flavored with rosemary and lemon.
Ask your waiter at the start of things if they're serving
chocolate soufflé that night, and if so order it
in advance. Nearly toque-sized, this high-riser is laden
with Nocello, a hazelnut liqueur, and what brings this pup
down is less time itself than a steady pouring of dense
chocolate sauce smack into the cauldron. One of the best
desserts in town, it will nevertheless not overwhelm a homemade
pumpkin ice cream, light yet rich, that fosters a brace
of earthen colors at the conclusion.
What I find engaging about the Veritable Quandary's food,
so ably turned out by Anne Barnette, David Haverkampf and
Jim Kilberg, is the great respect the kitchen shows for
the integrity of its ingredients, a respect that enhances,
not inhibits, the aesthetics of presentation. So many restaurants
rely on pretentious assemblages and excessive decoration;
the V.Q. lets a dish speak for itself, imbued in its native
element with merely the slightest complementary assistance.
It's an almost egoless style of cooking, but one that can
be executed only with intelligence and assurance.
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Willamette Week | originally
published December 8,
1999
|
