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Name: Anthony Effinger
Job title: Reporter
The meal: My wife: tostada de atún ($21), Oregon albacore tuna with Three Sisters tostada, guacamole and salsa macha. Me: churrasco ($34), marinated flat iron steak with sautéed onions, salsa roja and Three Sisters corn tortillas, at Palomar.
What was so good about it: If you put a salad fork to my head, I’d be hard-pressed to say what’s best about Palomar: the food, the room, the service or the vibe. They are all outstanding. I’m fine with eating, say, terrific pho in a restaurant lined with bad paneling, or stellar burgers in a place with dusty taxidermy on the wall. But, given the choice, I really like a nice room with good lighting.
Palomar, the Cuban cocktail lounge and restaurant that moved to Northwest 23rd Avenue from East Portland earlier this spring, has it all. Owner Ricky Gomez, a New Orleans native and award-winning bartender, leads with his cocktails, which are extraordinary. My wife, Diana, who usually sticks to one pre-dinner drink, had two.
The food blew our minds, too. I’m not a restaurant critic, but I’ll tell you that the flat iron steak was perfectly spiced and that the tostada crackled beautifully beneath the tuna in Diana’s tostada de atún. And it was such a delight to eat and drink such good stuff in a beautiful room. The black and white tile on the floor and the mandarin-upholstered seats at a bar with bottles bathed in Caribbean-blue light made us think we’d flown to Havana, or at least Miami. Gomez was on site and came over to talk. I don’t know if it’s appropriate to review restaurant owners, but he is a really good dude.
TRY IT: Palomar, 1422 NW 23rd Ave., 971-266-8276, barpalomar.com. 4–10 pm Monday–Friday, noon–10 pm Saturday and Sunday.
