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| The
100 Best Restaurants in Portland |
Restaurant of
the Year > BY JAMES McQUILLEN Oba 555 NW 12TH AVE. 228-6161 OPEN DAILY A Portlander returning to the city now after 20 years' absence might feel, on walking through the Pearl District, like Rip van Winkle. The explosion of slick style and color over what used to be acres of gray, the new construction and high-ticket renovation, the commerce and especially the crowds give the lie to the adage that the more things change, the more they remain the same. Newness so thoroughly rules the Pearl that Northwest 23rd Avenue seems dated by comparison. Restaurants spring up amid this kind of development like fireweed in a clearcut, and none better exemplifies the spirit of this burgeoning part of Portland than Oba, a "restaurante de lujo" (deluxe) at the corner of Northwest 12th Avenue and Hoyt Street. High-concept, heavily capitalized and visually striking, it signals the ascendance of a design sensibility and a culinary trend, and in doing so helps to define the character of what, for want of a better term, we might call a neighborhood. A dramatic aesthetic prevails here; colors are rich and warm, and the lighting alone would put most stage designers to shame. There is painstaking attention to detail, from the presentation of garnishes to the cobalt-blue glasses that catch the eye at every turn. But as much as the design helps to unify the sprawling interior, Oba manages to be more like three restaurants sharing a kitchen than a single, homogeneous establishment. The open and airy central dining room, lined by deep booths on either side, is meant to evoke an outdoor plaza--not the local streetscape, but rather one you might find a couple thousand miles south of here. The smaller dining room in the back is a more sedate and intimate space, with carpeting that helps to muffle the typical hubbub of a busy night. The bar is slick and high-tone, the natural habitat of the cocktail-and-cell-phone set, and on First Thursday it's wall-to-wall people. Oba manages in this way to provide different experiences, to maintain multiple identities without seeming schizophrenic. Each part of the restaurant has its own signature touch: a forest-sized flower arrangement atop the wait station in the central room, candles burning behind a fireplace grate in the back, illuminated shelves in the bar. (The design is not without minor peculiarities. Waiters in the dining rooms wear chef's tunics while in the bar, staff is attired in crisp black shirts and slacks vaguely reminiscent of cops' uniforms; an authority thing, perhaps, in keeping with the Latin-American theme.) There is, of course, the not inconsiderable matter of the food, which is still, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, the reason for a restaurant. Oba's is interesting and consistently good, and a few dishes have already garnered an enthusiastic following. The chili-corn fritters, essentially hush puppies with a Latin twist provided by poblano chilies and a lime-flavored sour cream, are addictive. A shot of tequila lends a heady touch to a spicy-sweet tropical shrimp ceviche, and Cuban Ha Cha Cha Langostinos in garlic-paprika sauce are the quintessential bet-you-can't-eat-just-one appetizer. A game hen marinated for two days in chili cure, then roasted over mesquite, is a high point. Come early if you want to order it, as it regularly sells out. The pan-Latin menu is innovative in some respects, though it also plays it safe in others. There's a prime rib that seems to be on the menu only to win over diners who might be vacillating between Oba and Ruth's Chris, and one wonders if every restaurant in town really needs a Caesar salad and a salmon dish. The integration of wild mushroom-filled pasta empanadas into the theme on a recent menu seemed to be a feat of lexical gerrymandering; they were, after all, what you would be more likely to call mushroom ravioli. (Extending the concept, I now refer to my pillows as down-filled cotton empanadas.) But dishes are mostly unique and worth repeat visits. A rare ahi encrusted with ancho peppers is one such, as are the smoky-flavored tamales stuffed with roast peppers. Even the pan-roasted salmon vatapa, with a spicy, crunchy skin of sazon goya, an Ecuadoran seasoning mixture, could excite salmon-weary Portland palates. It was not too long ago that the culinary cutting edge, as represented by restaurants like Wildwood and Higgins, was a focus on local, seasonal ingredients that evoke a sense of place on a plate. Oba is about elsewhere, someplace drier and sunnier. From its warm colors to its Latin flavors, it provides an escape from nine months of drizzle--a sort of webfoot's Fantasy Island. Oba's visual style and culinary theme are not entirely new. In some respects they represent refinements of ideas behind Chez Grill, Bima and Fiddleheads. But its scale and ambition--verging on hubris--are unprecedented. As one of my colleagues notes, it has "out-Bima'd Bima." Oba has gone a long way toward embodying the soul of a new part of the city and thrown imaginative and honestly prepared food into the bargain. For this, Oba is Willamette Week's restaurant of the year. Imagining
¡Oba! BY JIM DIXON It's almost impossible to pinpoint exactly what makes a restaurant successful. While the food may seem like the obvious element, good eating alone doesn't guarantee that customers will walk through the doors. Location, timing, atmosphere and marketing play a part, but it's the buzz, the word on the street that rapidly spreads through those six degrees of separation, that can make or break a restaurant. Oba had buzz from the beginning. It started at the pre-opening party last fall. Besides the usual suspects--beer distributors, equipment wholesalers and the always-hungry local food media--Oba was packed with a good cross-section of Portland's art community. This was the Pearl District, after all, and the gallery owners and artists were neighbors. But they were also well-connected, and if they liked Oba, it had a shot. Owner Steve McLain admits to being a little a nervous before the opening. "When we were building last year, we'd see nobody on the street in the Pearl during the day," McLain said recently. "Then First Thursday came and we thought, wow. At first we thought the idea might be too far out to attract the mainstream," he continued. "We realized that the people who lived in the Pearl would love it--but could we draw the guy whose idea of eating out is going to Ruth's Chris and having a big, thick steak?" Even the most ardent carnivore had to respond to the interior, a striking interpretation of the village plaza done, as architect John Holmes put it, "almost surrealistically." Intense overhead color and twinkling light create a dreamy sky, while the shadowy booths, hand-wrought ironwork and sparkle of art glass give the main dining room the structural rhythm of a South American marketplace. Holmes, whose firm Holst Architecture recently finished the nearby Pacific Northwest College of Art, said the design concept "came out of the Central-American food theme, but without being terribly literal." It may be a stretch to call it magical realism, but the space definitely got people talking. Chef Scott Neuman's challenge was to translate his passion for the flavors of the Southwest, Caribbean and Latin America into food that local diners would order again and again. "I wanted to take the ideas and foods that are native to those areas and make them into something that's appealing to Portlanders," Neuman explained. "We didn't want to be a Mexican restaurant or a Cuban or a Southwestern restaurant," said Neuman. "We wanted to be able to create a unique cuisine." Whether you call it Latin fusion or nuevo latino, Oba's offerings meet McLain's goal of "food that you're not going to find anywhere else in Portland." The combination of unusual foods, such as the Cuban boniato (sweet potatoes) with the more familiar ahi tuna or our own local salmon flavored with an Ecuadoran spice blend called sazon goya (a mixture of annatto seed, coriander, cumin, ginger and garlic), succeeds in being, as the owner hoped, "challenging and yet understandable." Aside from the food and design, what McLain and Neuman wanted to do at Oba was allow their customers to have fun. All of the restaurant's elements work together to form what McLain calls "a real high-energy atmosphere that just makes you feel good. "The concept," said McLain, "was of a fun, hip restaurant that would transport you out of the Northwest." That trip is what everybody's talking about.
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