Toro Bravo: In Pictures

Two years ago Wifey and I went to dinner at Toro Bravo and experienced one of the best meals of our lives. For some inexplicable reason we had not been back since. Why? I have no idea. We could blame it on the fact you have to get there early to get a table, which is problematic during the week and not helpful on the weekend. We could blame it on the fact you can't make reservations for just two people.

We could, but really, I don't know why. Today we rectified that...and were rewarded with an absolutely fantastic meal. With minimal commentary, here is Toro Bravo in pictures.

Any meal at Toro must start with these - griddle bacon wrapped dates in honey stuffed with an almond. Just two bites each, these are divine, sweet and savory and crunchy all rolled into the perfect mouthful.

We ordered drinks too, a white wine sangria (with blackberries, blueberries, and orange), and a limoncello drink, with cava and Tosca cherries.

The next plate to come was a fresh empanada stuffed with tomato, ham and corn. This came with a side of greens and pickled onions, plus a mayo-based dipping sauce. The empanada also had spinach inside.

Want to see the inside? Well, here you go:

Yeah, it was also awesome. Great flavors, light crust, and the greens provided a nice palate cleanser.

The next dish was grilled corn with cilantro pesto. It came on the cob, cut into thirds.

Not only was it pretty in the initial presentation, but after slicing the corn off the cob it still looked nice.

The crisp, sweet corn worked fantastic with the cilantro pesto. I could eat a mountain of this.

The last small plate was drunken pork and avocado salad. The pork was wrapped in bacon, making it more awesome, and everything about this dish was just right.

The last dish was the biggest, the paella Toro.

Yep, there is all sorts of fun stuff in there: mussels, clams, shrimp, chorizo, braised chicken, rice, tomatoes, peppers, and even lemon slices. Neither of us had ever eaten paella before - again, I have no idea why - but everything in this plate had great flavor, was cooked perfectly, and it just looks so damn pretty.

We ate everything but couldn't finish off the paella - we had to save room for dessert. We each ordered a dessert. The first to come out was caramel panna cotta. The two layers - both of which are made in house - tasted fantastic on their own and phenomenal together. Panna cotta in general is one of our favorites, but this quite possibly could be the best (our waitress said this was her favorite dessert on their menu) in the entire city.

Our other dessert was the molten chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream. We sat at the chef's counter again this time and could see much of the prep work and cooking - which is fascinating - and the chef closest to us leaned over and placed this before us:

Does it look awesome? Oh it was, it sure was. The gooey insides leaked all over the plate when we cracked it open with a fork, mixing with the cake and the vanilla to make taste buds happy. The chef also made a point of telling us we had chosen well and this was his favorite dessert on their menu.

It's not a cheap meal - $72 plus tip - but with the quality of the food, I really don't care. It was that good.

We will absolutely go back....and it will not take us two years to return. That's a promise.

Toro Bravo - Portland

If you ask around the People Who Know These Things in Portland about what is the city's best restaurant, you will get a myriad of replies. Some will pick the Spanish-inspired tapas restaurant Toro Bravo; many will not.

However, if you ask these same people for their top five, Toro Bravo will probably make the cut for just about everyone. So what exactly is it? Tapas are small plates, with the intention you can share them in a group and get tastes of many different things in the course of a lively dinner, and usually paired with wines. Toro Bravo has taken that Spanish style of eating and infused it with local ingredients and flavors, while still holding on to some of the Spanish themes as well.

And, as everyone told us, the results are spectacular - so we had to check it out.

We decided to go on a Sunday, right about the time it opened. Traffic forced us to be about 15 minutes after opening, but we found a spot about  a block and a half away (street parking only in a neighborhood). We stepped in to the restaurant and the place was hopping, but thankfully there were still a few open seats (I've heard stories about long lines, and I'm not one for waiting longer than 5-10 minutes). The hostess actually seated us at a bar-like area right by the open kitchen - called the Chef's bar - so we could actually see some of what was going on back there. You know, I have a great respect for the chefs - the working area is small, you have to deal with the other chefs, there are tons of sharp objects, hot pans are everywhere... I'd probably end up in the ER once a week with my history...

The inside of the place is nice. There is the requisite red involved in the color scheme, but it's tasteful. There is a mix of tables, from the bar area we sat at to tables of four to areas for a group of 15 or so.

But, of course, you go there for the food. We started off with a glass of the house red wine sangria - which we split, since Wifey doesn't drink much and I was driving. It was good - tart, but not overly so, with enough sweet to balance it out. They also gave us some pretty good mixed nuts to nibble on while we waited, which was nice because I was fairly hungry.

Our first tidbit of food was a Griddled Bacon Wrapped Date with warm honey from the Pinchos section of the menu (ours was stuffed with an almond). Truthfully, I had never eaten a date before, so I had no idea what to expect. A big raisin? That's actually not too far off, though they aren't too big and we probably should have ordered two (only $2 each). However, this was amazing. Sweet and salty, but melt in your mouth, especially with the accompanying honey. This was the first item we ate and I had already decided I'd come back just for these.

Our second course was a plate of chorizo sausage, manchego cheese, and country bread from the Charcuteria section. All of these were yummy, complementing each other well. However, I don't know if I'd get it again, just because it's something you can get elsewhere and I don't necessarily think I'd point at any of the three things as being the best I've ever had. Plus, there are so many other things to order...

Our final two courses were from the Tapas section. Wifey picked out the salt cod fritters with aioli, which she had read about online as being fantastic. They were good and had good flavor, but wouldn't necessarily be something we had to order again.

I picked out jamon-wrapped chicken with pisto manchego. I had no idea what jamon was when I ordered, just hoped it wasn't anything I wouldn't like. Turns out jamon is a lot like proscuitto and tastes bacony, so that part was fabulous. Pisto manchego, which I expected to be something related to the cheese, is actually more like a tomato sauce or a thick salsa with a ton of great flavor. Maybe like a piccata? So this dish was chicken, ham, and thick red sauce - and it was fantastic. Very fantastic.

So what did we think of Toro Bravo? I'm not prepared to say it's Portland's best, but it was pretty damn good and we will absolutely be going back. The menu is just so varied with so many things that looked good - and the house bacon and manchego burger is supposed to be magnificent - that one visit isn't enough.

We'll absolutely be going back for more "research."