A really bad meal
Okay, I’ve been sitting on this post for a few days. I’m not a food critic and I don’t want to bash a restaurant after only going there once. But when you take your wife to a special place on her birthday that is supposedly one of the elite Portland dining experiences and you have to surreptitiously spit food into your napkin twice, because it is so unappetizing, well, it just doesn’t seem right.
I’m speaking of the “legendary” Genoa (their quotes, not mine) on SE Belmont. They serve a 7-course meal for 80 dollars. There are a few choices on the main courses, but you basically have a very limited menu to pick from. I wasn’t really into the lack of options, but that’s what they do, so I’m not going to complain about that.
It’s just that almost every course was bland and just mediocre. At no point in the 7 courses did either my wife or I exclaim something to the effect of “wow, you gotta taste this”. In fact, we were more likely to sadly admit that it wasn’t worth sharing. It almost became comical. The courses are small and we left food on almost every plate for lack of interest.
The service was very good and it’s a nice intimate space. But for the price and the reputation, it was a major disappointment. Luckily, we were able to use a gift certificate to pay for the meals, but even so I feel ripped off. If I had had to pay over 200 bucks (including beverages) for such a unappealing dinner I would have been furious.
Again, I’m not a food critic and I don’t want to trash Genoa, we’ve only been there once and maybe they were having an off night. It’s just that a number of people have asked us excitedly how it was and we had to lamely reply that it was actually bad. The place has a really good reputation – how is that possible? I see some mixed reviews on CitySearch. Are they just stagnating, cruising on that reputation? Have they gone downhill in recent years? Has anyone had a good meal there recently?