Author: jean komatsu
Last saved by: GCS

Paley's Place
1204 NW 21^st Avenue, Portland (Burnside location)
http://www.paleysplace.net/
Review date:  September, 2010

Paley's is a popular bistro in the Burnside neighborhood, a slowly gentrifying area north of downtown Portland. Once a thriving industrial area, it's trying to reinvent itself and the current recession has clearly hurt those efforts. Bordering the river are pockets of mid-rise condo developments, helped along by the two-mile long Waterfront Park named after long-time governor Tom McCall.

Paley's is located in an older home, with the first floor turned into the restaurant and the wide front porch used as their outdoor dining patio. They're famous for their charcuterie, so we tried the special of any 3 for $22. We chose the pork and chanterelle terrine, the spicy prosciutto, and the chorizo palacios, a Spanish-style chorizo. The spicy prosciutto was quite mild but good. The chorizo reminded us of a homemade Portugese sausage that an old family friend used to make, only her version used regular paprika instead of the sweet pimenton in this one. Very similar to a salame, it was delicious, especially with bread and butter. 

The winner in the trio was the terrine. The chopped chanterelles were mixed with coarse ground pork and black pepper, formed around a tender, thyme-infused pork tenderloin left whole. It was outstanding. Even Carlos liked it, and he normally doesn't care for the coarser 'country style' pates.

What made the plate memorable was the housemade pickled vegetables. Turnip, white onion and red bells were pickled. I never think of pickling bell peppers, but these were marvelous with the charcuterie. They added a relish of whole-seed German-style mustard with fresh peaches, which was also excellent.

Carlos chose the flat-iron steak with roasted vegetables and charmoula sauce, on my recommendation. Charmoula is more often used on chicken and lamb, but I think it goes very well with beef. Paley's does a very good, earthy charmoula and it was great spread over the grilled steak, which was done precisely to Carlos's request, on the rare side of medium-rare.

I chose the crusted sweetbreads with a pork belly braise. The sweetbreads were just a tad overcooked but still tender. The pork was a nicely trimmed square, perhaps a bit oversalted but cured to give it the taste of a ham. The additions were unusual: a pickled tart cherry relish and a sauce of Dijon mustard, cream, and tiny dice of pork kidneys. This sauce was great on the sweetbreads, and also went well with the pile of spicy mustard micro-greens.  I also added a side of braised greens with garlic and olive oil, receiving a good-sized order of barely cooked, delicious baby collard greens.

Although we were full, the food was so imaginative and interesting, we decided to split a dessert. I chose the apple tart tartine with goat cheese ice cream and caramelized apples. The latter were tiny half-scoops of sweet-glazed lady apples. The tartine was a simple round of puff pastry topped with a cored, brown-sugar caramelized apple slice about an inch thick. Inside the center they placed a small scoop of an aged goat cheese. The pungency cut the sweetness of the caramelized fruit. The first bite took Carlos by surprise, but he quickly agreed with me that it was an unusual, but delicious combination. Their coffee was a local brand, Stumptown, strong and very good.

We liked this restaurant a lot. It was, as I remarked to Carlos, the food I was expecting from Michael Mina's RN74 in San Francisco, but didn't even come close to getting. If we lived in Portland, we would buy one of those condos to be within walking distance of Paley's food, the  phenomenal stacks in Powell's bookstore, and the luscious chicken vol-au-vent of St. Honore's patisserie. 

Paley's does get negative comments about the service being not quite as good as the food. Our experience was fine, but we did tell them we were time-challenged, being tired from the long drive, so we were in and out in 90 minutes.

The charcuterie trio, two entrees, one dessert, two beverages, with generous tip, came to an extraordinary good value of $131.