what gives?

OK, so why would it be that, right when Portland becomes a focal point for food enthusiasts across the nation, the food here starts to suck? The number of mediocre-to-revolting restaurant experiences I've had over the last two weeks or so exceeds the total number for the previous year. What gives?

Granted, half of those problems stemmed from eating at a mall food court, and therefore hardly count, but the other half occurred at establishments that I have come to count on for decent grub. The first (and only one I'll mention by name) occurred a couple weekends ago at Laurelwood. The wife and I found ourselves with a free evening, so we thought it would be good to drive over to Laurelwood's new location on Sandy.

We stepped inside to be greeted by a hostess holding one of those obnoxious flashing pagers. I was a little skeptical that such measures were really necessary for a party of two, but I took it like a good complacent customer and we went to sit at the bar. I was pleased to see that they had a Fresh Hop IPA on the specials board, and I was very excited to give it a try. If only that wonderful sense of anticipation could have lasted a few moments longer, but alas, the beer was served, and it had pretty much zilch in the way of hop aroma or flavor. It had plenty of bitterness, of course, but I could have ordered literally 75% of their brew menu if that's all I was after.

The new bar looked great, but they have added TVs everywhere you look, so the Beavers game was playing in one focal point, and the Ducks game in another, so of course, rather than looking at the digs, everybody was glued to the tubes. The brewery was visible through the back of the bar, but you could really only see one of the tanks, not even close to as cool as the surgical-gallery-like view of the operation in the old place. Sigh. Another brewpub decides to go for quantity over quality. Sure enough, I looked over the bar, and they had bottles of Laurelwood beer lined up, ready to go.

Eventually, our pager buzzed and flashed, indicating that our seats were ready. I looked around the dining room adjoining the bar, expecting, as a party of 2, to be seated at a 2-seater booth or small table. Nope. Once we were able to stand in line (what was the pager for, again?) long enough to get the hostess's attention, we were led back to a larger room with a row of tables along the wall and a bunch of roughly-shaven yuppity young parents standing around a kids' area. The waiter led us to a table where a man was standing over his kid, who was sitting in a chair wiping boogers on every available surface. The waiter actually had to go up to this guy and say, "excuse me" before the guy scooped up his brat, and moved, shooting us and the waiter a dirty look. There was, I shit you not, an actual booger sitting on the table. The waiter thoughtfully placed my menu down beside it, rather than on it, then wandered off, leving me to deal with the icky booger-removal chore. Whatever, I have kids, I can handle it. Never mind that I came here without my kids, like on purpose, just to escape for a few precious hours from having to wipe anybody's anything.

I ordered the flatiron steak with parsnip mashed potatoes. The potatoes were exactly what I was hoping they would be, creamy and parsnippy. The steak came sliced, as I would have expected. The problem was that the person doing the slicing had obviously never seen a flatiron steak before, and had sliced it the wrong way, resulting, as anyone with any meatlore would expect, in very tasty, but completely tough and chewy slices of steak. A bit of chefly incompetence would not have bothered me much, had I not been seated where I was, or had I not ordered a completely different style of beer (Hooligan)that inexplicably ended up tasting precisely like the Fresh Hop Ale I had just finished. This was not a mixup, just the way it was. By design, I have to assume. I could even have tolerated that, had we not been seated right next to a couple with two kids, both of whom did all the screaming and gobbing that my kids would have done had I chosen to bring them. EVEN THIS I could have tolerated, had I not had to use the restroom, which was a serious trade down from what they had in their old place. The bathrooms in the old restaurant did not smell like pee, even on busy evenings with lots of kids. They had more than one unisex bathroom in play, as well. You could expect to just waltz in and pee with no wait, then wash up and return to your table to finish your sentence. Bah! The new place was the opposite of that, pee-stinking, single, and tucked back inconveniently from both bar and restaurant.

The service didn't measure up, either, but once I managed to chase down the waitress, tackle her to the floor, and wrest the check from her clenched fist, ignoring her screams of protest, we were able to leave.

So, I'm sad to say that I won't be going back to Laurelwood anytime soon. I anticipated great things from their new location, but all I got was this lousy nostalgia.