Ten 01, "A Stake Through the Heart"

As if WW Dish reviewer Heidi Yorkshire's critical take on Ten 01 in late January, "Looks: 10, Food: 01," wasn't clear enough, now the Oregonian's grande food dame Karen Brooks has piled on the beleaguered Pearl District behemoth and went fish-in-a-barrel shooting herself in today's A&E section.

Here's a mouthful from the review:

Hollywood had "Ishtar." The music world has Britney Spears. Portland dining has Ten 01 -- a case of grand ambition gone terribly wrong.... Dishes at this splashy new restaurant are conceived as if they were the last on Earth and every flavor known to man and beast must be sampled before the hour of annihilation. What else could explain the kitchen's bizarre concoctions?

Ishtar??? Ouch. Perhaps just as interesting is some bloggy responses to the review, and the whole Ten 01 debacle itself. Occasional WW contributor and scribe about town Nancy Rommelmann took a look at the phenomenon of reader backlash on her blog while Food Dude summed up the situation quite nicely on Portland Food & Drink:

An astonishingly vitriolic review for the O, and good reading; kind of like a car wreck you can't help but look at.

Okay, readers, now it's your turn. Is Ten 01 getting a raw deal? Or are local reviewers really being cruel to be kind on behalf of Portland diners' stomachs...and wallets?