Audrey’s Kitchen

555 NW 12th Ave
Portland, OR 97209
Phone: (503) 228-6161
http://obarestaurant.com/

Between dinners for two with my sweetheart to a company party of 60, I’ve probably eaten at Oba more than any other restaurant in Portland.  Each time, I tell myself that I must take pictures and review it and I am happy to say that I like it even better now than I did when I first tried it years ago.   This warm and sensual hotspot is still a very popular place, and for good reason.  They have an amazing happy hour from 4:30pm-6:30pm daily with drinks as low as $3 and a good selection of tapas.  It’s beautiful and sophisticated but has all the comfort of a loud and busy bar without the drunk frat boys.

For this night, my sweetie and I decided to try the new 3-course meal at Oba.   The meals come with soup of the day or caesar salad, a choice between two main entrees, and a choice between two desserts.  These dinners start at $28/person for roasted chicken up to $45/person for swordfish or prime rib.   Since we were feeling festive that night, we opted for the $45/person meal and ordered the suggested wine pairings.

For our first course, I chose the salad while the fiance chose the sopa del dia (potato & cheddar soup). The soup had a lovely drizzle of chili oil that gave the soup a pleasant kick.

I like more lemon & anchovy in my Caesar dressing but the pickled red onions gave it a nice contrasting tartness.

For our entree, I had the macademia nut crusted swordfish with coconut rice.  The accompanying brown sauce was really sour. It kind of reminded me of A-1 sauce and I didn’t really like it with the fish.  I scraped off the sauce and ate the fish with the lovely sun-dried tomatoes & pesto sauce instead.

The fiance chose the Prime Rib, cooked to a perfect medium.  It was so tender and juicy–seriously among the best prime rib I have ever had.  It came with spicy horseradish and au jus along with fresh corn salsa and mashed potatoes.  This was so good!

Dessert was kind of superfluous at this point, but I ordered the chocolate chimichanga while the fiance opted for the spiced apple cake.  Each dessert arrived beautifully plated with a small accompanying scoop of ice cream.  I didn’t really like my chimichanga because I could taste the deep fried oil.  I did like the bittersweet ganache middle and the mocha ice cream though.

The spiced apple cake was good but too heavy to serve at the end of such a big meal.  That didn’t stop the fiance from devouring it haha.

All in all, we had a lovely time at Oba.  You have to ask for bread but make sure you do because you get slices of yummy chewy, dense, yet soft bread along with a trio of spreads.  The red pepper sauce and the black bean hummus were my favorite.  We liked our meal so much that we inquired about their special event rooms.  The food & beverage minimum for the Havana room is only $500 for non-holidays and it seats up to 80 people.  3-course dinners start at $28 with 21% gratuity.