Situated in downtown Portland and occupying the 6th through 15th floors of the historic Meier & Frank Building is The Nines, a Starwood Luxury Collection property. For our two nights in Portland, we made this our base of operations to experience some of what Portland has to offer.
The Nines offers two distinct restaurant/bar experiences, Departure and Urban Farmer. We’ll cover Departure in our cocktails review. Our experience at the Urban Farmer started with lunch the day of our arrival. After a long and hectic morning of travel, we decided a beer would be ideal with lunch. Both of us settled on a Hopworks Lager. This was a nice somewhat light brew that didn’t set off my anti-bitter alarms.
Urban Farmer bills itself as a Modern Steakhouse and give we only had lunch (and a couple of breakfasts) we can’t attest to how they fare as a Steakhouse. The interior appointments support the name, however. Looking around the space, one is confronted with a number of colors and textures – sometimes a bit too much. To one side, the bar occupies the entire wall. In the center of the dining area is a large communal table that sits at bar height. The perimeter of the space is occupied with bench seating, tables, and chairs. Colors and patterns are a very interesting selection of plaids and vibrant colors such as pink, purple, and chartreuse. Textures also abound in the form of multiple wood types, glass, metal, and fabric. James was especially fond of the plastic prairie grasses that were used to separate a number of tables from the main dining room. One interesting feature of the restaurant was a number of large flat panel TV’s that ran a loop of pseudo traffic driving along the interstate and overpasses as they would be viewed from a field .
On to the food. With the day being rainy and cool, soup sound ideal and they had one of my favorites, she crab soup. This was an excellent rendition of the classic with a couple of updates. Presentation was unique in that a Scandinavian style bowl was brought to the table containing only some lump crab meat and what they termed “yolk confit”. In his other hand, the server held what looked to be a cast iron tea pot of Far Eastern origin. As the soup’s liquid component was slowly poured, we caught whiffs of sherry, cream, and herbs from the accompanying steam. Two large triangles of grilled bread leaned on the sides of the bowl as garnish and for addressing any stray traces of liquid. The soup was creamy and rich without a cloying quality. An appropriate amount of sweetness from both the crab and liquid provided a n interesting backdrop to the sherry and herbs. James scooped up the yolk confit. Not having had a “yolk confit” before it resembled a soft boiled egg and tasted like one as well. This dish was a wise choice as we proceeded to use the bread to sop up every last drop.
The main attraction for lunch was the cheesesteak sandwich with shaved wagyu sirloin, gruyere fondue, and house chips. This more than ample sandwich was served open-face style. Nothing about this was scant in nature – generous amounts of cheese, onions, and peppers were all present. Flavors were rich and hearty in this take on the popular east coast invention. The beef while tender and flavorful, did not have the depth we’ve found in other wagyu beef dishes. In this case, it tasted like any high quality prime beef. The gruyere flavors were present and were a nice touch to typical generic cheeses used in cheesesteak sandwiches. One disappointment was that the bread did become somewhat soggy losing its crispness had at the start of the meal.
Service was well above average and what I would expect for a luxury hotel restaurant. Our wait staff was knowledgeable and attentive, but still casual in many respects.
The bar is a different experience that we’ll get to in another review.
If you’re looking for a trendy spot with an interesting menu to have lunch then Urban Farmer is a good choice.
Food: 3.5
Service: 4.0
Atmosphere: 3.5
Overall: 3.5
