DIVERSION PDX: BULLARD

Whoever beat out Doug Adams in Top Chef must've either gotten really lucky, or I'm gonna have to seek out THAT guy's restaurant, too.  But I was in Portland, and that's where Adam's has opened his new-ish Texas-meets-Oregon wonderland called Bullard.  And it is so utterly excellent I can't imagine how he didn't win, but if it was that fate that allowed him to create this destination within the Woodlark Hotel in downtown Portland, I'm thrilled he lost.  The back of the menu gives you an idea of what hospitality means to Adams, and the kind of vibe you're in store for.  I could've easily removed my boots here, and yeah, post-prandially?  Definitely too stuffed to jump.

Elk horns are right at home here

The bustling bar

The dining room itself is spacious and simple, sparse but not barren.  A vast portion of the real estate is dedicated to an amply stocked bar from which they sling tweaked classics in three versions each.  They fall into five categories: Old Fashioneds, Whiskey Sours, Negronis and Margaritas, plus a full array of beer and wines.   It would seem a fine destination for drinks, especially with all that elbow room, although it's a little odd considering their sister bar, Abigail Hall, is just steps away through the lobby of the hotel, a drinking hall dedicated to old times cocktails in a space nearly as big as Bullard.

That's Bullard the restaurant, not the city in Texas from which its chef hails, and that influences its otherwise Oregon-centric menu.   And from the far end of the restaurant, past that beckoning bar, is
 from whence all the magic derives: a bustling open kitchen glowing with a wood-fired oven whose flames can be seen flickering from afar.   Our server was bright, poised, chipper and of course, requisitely tattooed.  She guided us briefly through  a fairly straight-forward menu, clarifying which plates were more share friendly, although prices are a fairly accurate gauge of this.  Lucky for that, because a $68 T-bone better serve more than one, especially in Stumptown.

Field Greens Salad

But the food is wildly flavorful and generous, and at times generously wild.  A simple sounding butter leaf salad might not have been so accurately titled, as most of the greens with other-than-butter-leaf varietals, but a server explained that the selection of baby mustards, watercress, chicories and mizuna were hand-picked daily from a local farm in terms of whichever looked best.  A recent update to the menu now titles the salad as Field Greens, a much more accurate description.   The various leaves cradled tiny discs of crisp fennel stalk in a a gently lemony dressing, its pucker tamed by caramelizing the tangy citrus, and a shroud of crunch breadcrumbs that looked a little heavy for the delicate greens actually meted out perfectly, augmenting their crunch.

Grilled Prawns (aka shrimp & grits)

Another appetizer, Grilled Prawns, could easily pass as a moderate main course, bolstered by a veggie side dish such as the braised turnips with chili oil and roe, or an indulgent maple-roasted squash with pecan.  Basically a fantastic modern riff on shrimp & grits, the shellfish themselves were among the best I've ever had, fresh and sweet and firm.  The grits came in polenta form, baked into a solid brick and burnished to a crisp golden brown crust, leaving the interior plush and tender and rife with buttery corn flavor.  But the true star of the dish, as was the case with pretty much every thing we tried, was the sauce.  This guy can do sauce.  This one in particular was rich and ruddy, a tangy chili-enriched butter kicked with garlic and... magic.

Usually I opt for whatever fish is available, and while a Supper Plate of Rainbow trout with black-eyed peas and celery was presumably great, it was the lure of Braised Elk Shoulder from The Smoker that caught my attention.  I didn't even know if I'd like elk, but it's preparation sure made a case on its

Tough not to pocket this one....

behalf, braised with mushrooms and truffles on a bed of buttery-rich potato puree.  The shoulder meat succumbed to the gentle pressure of a fork, no steak knife required (although the one provided was exquisitely beautiful, its gleaming blade secured in carved bone).  It was richly beefy but a little lighter on the palate, a characteristic that was more than compensated for by (again) the sauce, an umami-rich pool of stock, meat juices and mushrooms that I spooned up like soup, wished for a straw, wondered if there were jars to spare for purchase that I could buy by the bucketful.  The decadence of the

Braised Elk Shoulder

 creamy potatoes almost went by unnoticed in comparison, although in any other context they would have been the highlight, as luscious as they were.  We worked in another entree as a shared side dish, a Cauliflower Steak which was really not a steak but the whole head, roasted and slathered in smoked peppers and crispy bits of onion, the whole things refreshed with super juicy supremes of blood orange and shreds of basil, the latter of which maybe wasn't quite as flavorful as it might've been, but then again, it was December, and then AGAIN, the

Cauliflower (not) Steak

 combination was anything but lacking in flavor
 from all the other elements, so nothing was amiss.  





After all that food and just our two little stomachs at capacity, dessert unfortunately wasn't going to be an option.  It was an interesting sweets menu, though, which kind of had me wanting to a la carte select ingredients from each offering to compose my own dessert, although had we decided to forge ahead with ordering one, either the grapefruit Baked Alaska or the Cranberry Cobbler with sour cream apple ice cream were the most tempting.  My choose-

What we missed.

your-own adventure dessert, though, might've somehow included the toasted vanilla marshmallows, white truffle ice cream, mulled red wine sauce.... oh, the delicacies we missed.  Oh.... the delicacies for which we must return.  True stories.

813 SW Alder Street
503-222-1670