Portland Restaurant: Chesa

One of the hardest parts of our quest to try new restaurants and bars is that our husbands and friends also occasionally want to get in on the fun and check out new places too. That means we are sometimes forced to go places without each other. It's sad, but ultimately unavoidable.

Such was the case with Chesa, the highly-anticipated, paella-focused restaurant from Ataula's Jose Chesa and Christina Baez.

It opened back in February, and has been receiving slightly mixed reviews, including this recent one from Willamette Week.

Below, you'll find my take and Katie's, both of which are also... slightly mixed.

What: Chesa
Where: 2218 NE Broadway St
Honeys Heart: Paella

Kelly's Take:

When is the last time I tried a new restaurant within a week of the opening? It's been a while. Too bad it takes me months and months to actually post about it so it basically doesn't matter when I went.

Adam and I met my coworker Maggie and her husband Walker there on a Friday night and, no surprise, encountered about a 45-minute wait, so we started with cocktails in the bar. Maggie and I made lots of good choices, though I can't remember which ones they were. Gin for me I'm sure, and I was a fan of the Chesa-stamped ice squares.

We started with the Costilla Iberico (port rib and fennel-garbanzo salad) and Bravas ($8 - Chesa's second bravas choice...). Both were pretty tasty, but in true tapas style, the portions were pretty small, but the price tags were medium-high.

Adam kept seeing bread go by, and was able to get his hands on some by ordering the Mejillones (mussels made in the josper) which came with some.

Overall, on the small plates front, I might choose Toro Bravo's over Chesa's.

For the main dish, the shining star of Chesa, we ordered two Paellas. The Mallorca ($22) is made with Carlton Farm pork shoulder, Spanish sobrasada, bomba rice, and nora picada (sun-dried peppers).

And the Chesa ($25) with sherry marinated rabbit, (Fermin) Iberico ham, Viridian Farms beans, bomba rice, and boletus (mushroom) ali-oli.

Since I waited too long to write this post, I won't be toooooo descriptive, but the Chesa was a favorite. The crispiness on the bottom added the perfect amount of crunch and the oils they used and the marinated meat added unique flavor and moisture that you won't find in just anyone's homemade paella (aka Doug's and mine).

Side note: Doug and I were inspired and later attempted to make a Spanish feast. We succeeded with a full menu that included croquettes, bacon wrapped dates, potatas romesco, grilled asparagus, and paella. We plan to try the paella again!

Overall, I would go back to Chesa for paella and gin drinks, but perhaps skip the rest!

Katie's Take

Doug and I hit up Chesa a few weeks after Kelly and Adam's visit.

We started off with drinks: a Gin Tonic ($10) for Doug and a Chesa ($10) with vermut roja, olive-oil washed gin, lemon, pimenton, and bay leaf syrup for me. We loved that Chesa offers gin tonics and a selection of vermouth since we drank quite a bit of both during our trip to Spain. So far, so good!

The Tortilla ($9) was a no-brainer since we were sure that this usually simple dish would be taken to the next level at Chesa...

... and it was a tortilla. Nothing special. Except that it was pretty tiny for being $9.

Next up was the Empedrat ($7), made with Viridan Farms beans, pine nuts, quail eggs, scallions, sherry vinaigrette, and smoked piquillo

This came highly recommended by our server, but was also underwhelming. The beans were too al dente for our taste and the flavors were nothing to write home about either. Miss.

We also tried the Bunuelo ($9), salt cod beignets with ali-oli, which was our favorite tapa of the three.

For our paella, we went with the Mar i Montana ($19) with braised oxtail, bomba rice, prawns, sofrito, and scallions.

The paella was rich, flavorful, and perfectly cooked- definitely the highlight of our meal.

In the end, Doug and I agreed that we had expected more out of the tapas and, similar to Kel's assessment, we'd turn to Atuala or Toro Bravo for a purely tapas fix. We'll be back to Chesa again, but probably only for Gin Tonics and paella.

Portland Restaurant: Toro Bravo

What: Toro Bravo
Where: 120 NE Russel St.
When: 5 pm - 10 pm Sun-Thur, 5 pm - 11 pm Fri-Sat
Honey's Heart: Google

Have you ever sat around with a couple friends, enjoying HH, talking about a sweepstakes you've entered, but surely won't win...but then you do? That is what happened to my friend Katie last month.

She called and said that she won the "Google Hotpot (now absorbed into Google Places) Jackpot" competition and we needed to choose a place to go to dinner...okay, wait, back up. This is how it worked: The "Google Hotpot Jackpot" competition was meant to encourage people to share and rate places they know with friends and family. Basically, an incentive to jumpstart Hotpot usage. We can argue whether this results in honest and thoughtful reviews since the goal is to do the most of them, but I can't say I was upset with the result! Katie won a dinner for herself and 4 friends at any restaurant in Portland...and we had $750 to spend!

Image via Wikipedia

Honestly, once we began searching it was hard to find a restaurant where we could spend that kind of money that wasn't primarily a steak house, but we finally settled on Toro Bravo, a Spanish inspired tapas restaurant. It was the perfect place to share a ton of different menu items, order bottles of wine and sangria, and celebrate, Spanish style, our friend's birthday who is currently living in Spain (miss you Sofi!)

We arrived for our 7pm reservations, were seated, brought a complimentary bottle of champagne and immediately had a celebrity sighting. Carrie Brownstein of Portlandia was across the room from us. Free champagne, free dinner (except, of course, for Katie's hard work), and a celebrity sighting! This was shaping up to be a good night. We sipped champagne, toasted to a night on Google, and looked over the drink menu.

Katie and I ordered the Sage Seville ($9) with Hendrick's gin, St. Germain, sage, and Fever Tree tonic, while Adam and Cooper opted for a bourbon beverage, The Williamsburg ($8) featuring Buffalo Trace bourbon, Imbue vermouth, maraschino liqueur and Fernet-Branca. Megan went a different route and chose the Amanacer ($9), a tequila cocktail with El Jimador, Aperol, grapefruit, and house grenadine. She wasn't a huge fan, but Katie and I loved it so they swapped. Their cocktail menu is varied, unique and delicious!

Our champagne and cocktails gave us a chance to peruse the menu which is broken down into four sections: Pinchos, Tapas, Charcuteria, and Raciones. We decided to take it section by section.

Pinchos
We ordered toasted almonds with sea salt ($2), marinated olives and pickled vegetables ($3), bacon wrapped dates ($2 ea x 10!), steve's cheese board ($10), and octopus a la plancha "becerrita" ($7). I could have lived without the almonds, marinated olives and pickled vegetables, but absolutely not without the bacon wrapped dates. I want some right now. Of course, you can't go wrong with a cheese board and if you like octopus, you'll love the octopus a la plancha. It was cooked perfectly!

Bacon Wrapped Date and Octopus a la Plancha

Tapas
With some help from our waitress we selected the tortilla espanola with nettles ($7), griddled shrimp and chilies ($9), potatoes bravas ($4/7), basque piperade with duck egg ($8), harira (moroccan lamb and lentil stew) ($4/8), grilled asparagus ($8), hand cut noodles ($9), empanada ($8) and grilled flat bread (with black truffle cheese and arugula) ($9).

Tortilla Espanola with nettles

Empanada with confit beef, almonds, and honey

Some of our favs included the the tortilla espanola, potatoes bravas, grilled asparagus, hand cut noodles and grilled flatbread...which we may have ordered another one of.

Grilled Flat Bread...SO DELICIOUS!

Charcuteria
Out of this section we only ordered the chorizo and manchego with country bread ($7) which I don't have a picture of and honestly don't remember.

Raciones
Now it was time to go nuts. We still had money to spend and this was the biggest section. Again guided by our waitress, we ordered seared scallops with romesco ($14), moroccan tuna with dried cherry couscous ($12), squid ink pasta (with hazelnuts, anchovy and egg yolk) ($12), baked polenta with roast beef, peppers, and onions ($4/8), oxtail croquettes with chili mayonnaise ($14), north african sausages with fries ($8/15), grilled moorish lamb chops ($10/20), jamon wrapped chicken with pisto manchego ($14), house smoked coppa steak ($7/14) and finally the paella toro (with chicken, chorizo, shrimp, clams and mussels, $19).

Scallops with romesco

Paella

Squid Ink Pasta

Something tasty.... ? 

Throughout dinner we also enjoyed the Red Sangria ($6/15) and a bottle of the '08 Dominio de Pingus ($60.) So much food and it was all fabulous, but at this point I think we were all feeling a little bit like this...

I wish I had been hungrier at this point so I could have really enjoyed the paella. The squid ink pasta was also really wonderful and I'm glad we weren't scared away by the anchovy syrup and, well, the squid ink. We did our best on this round, but definitely had a ton of leftovers and enough money remaining to send a bottle of champagne to a table celebrating a birthday, though it happened to be the owner of Toro Bravo's sister restaurant, Tasty n Sons, so they were probably getting a deal anyway! Oh well, it's the thought that counts, right?

Thanks again to Google and Katie for such a wonderful night! Google, you can pay for my dinner anytime, how does Friday night sound?