Feast@316 — Restaurant in Camas

What a rollercoaster!

When we arrived we saw people dining but no entrance, had to walk past the sushi bar to another door that said it wasn’t the entrance and then found a door that didn’t say it was the wrong entrance so we hoped it was the right one and went in. My family of 4 stood in the entrance area without acknowledgment from staff for 10 minutes that felt like 30 but was probably actually 7. When someone finally spoke to us they told us it would be an additional 5 minute wait for a table and then when they eventually seated us it was on the fully ready and set table that had been ready the whole time we had been waiting that was literally 2 feet from where we had been standing this whole time!

They didn’t have any children’s menus, and left to print one for my 5 year old but my 8 year old had to ask them for one because one wasn’t offered to him, off to the printer they went again!

We ordered the pub roll as a starter to share, it was excellent. Seriously, it was incredible.

Then came the main courses.

My wife order the Panzer-something-or-other salad that she said was great. My 5 year old ordered Mac and cheese from the children’s menu that he didn’t like or eat. My 8 year old ordered carbonara (usually one of his favourites) didn’t like or eat it. He was wrong, it was decent. Some of the pork belly had a little bit too much fat, but it was decent.

Then came my ‘market rate’ porterhouse.

Now, when I worked in restaurants and some smart ass guy comes in asking for his steak to be cooked “almost alive” I would take him at his word, mark it both sides and dare him to call it tartare!

This time however at one of the highest rated steakhouses in the area it was sent to the kitchen as ‘rare’. For me, expecting high quality meat this was already somewhat over cooked. When it arrived dramatically sizzling (and cooking more) on the iron skillet it was over cooked, over seasoned and greasy due to being smothered in butter. I genuinely couldn’t taste the meat and the strip side of the steak was cooked to medium. A bad steak is still a steak and so I ate it. I didn’t want to wait any longer for a re-fire. Maybe if I’d known what the ‘market rate’ was I would have sent it back - it was $108. I would expect the server to engage and make absolutely sure it was unequivocally cooked to the guest’s perfection. Apparently they asked in passing but did not engage specifically and deliberately with me.

To say I was excruciatingly disappointed would be an understatement....

We have always had a wonderful experience at Feast. The food is always incredible and waitresses have been extremely nice. This last experience was WEIRD.

We walked in around 6:30pm on Saturday night for a drink. No hostess at the front so we waited a bit. After about 5 minutes, we saw some open chairs at the bar and decided to go sit down. We were quickly shooed away by a waitress saying the seats were reserved and it would be a 20 minute wait for the bar. We thought that was a bit strange because bar seats are typically open for walk ins. We ended up leaving because we had an event to go to and couldn’t wait. No biggie.

After our event at around 8pm, we decided to go back for that drink. This time we decided to wait for a hostess to sit at the bar because we didn’t want to be scolded again. We waited another 5 minutes for a hostess to show up, that time more people had come in behind us waiting. The hostess finally approached us and asked “reservation?” No greeting or welcome, it was more of an attitude. We said no, we’d like to sit at the bar for a drink. She said absolutely nothing in response but instead answered the phone and took down a reservation. We waited for her to finish the phone call and as soon as she did, she just walked away. We were perplexed. She disappeared behind the bar to the back of the restaurant. Again, we waited because we weren’t sure if we were able to sit at the bar or if we needed to wait to be seated. The hostess reappeared from the back of the restaurant and stood at the bar folding napkins. We thought oh ok, maybe she’s folding napkins for us then she’ll seat us. Nope. She continued to fold set after set of napkins. My husband and I just stood by the front door waiting, along with other people who had walked in and sat down at the waiting area. I overheard another couple ask “where is the hostess? Is this restaurant open seating?” We just looked at them and shrugged in confusion. There were 4 empty seats at the bar and at least half of the restaurant had empty tables. We waited a total of 10 minutes by the front door just to get a drink at the bar and the hostess never came back so we left.

Needless to say, the hostess ruined the evening for us. Why in the world she would take a phone call or leave to fold napkins when she had people waiting at the front door to be seated is beyond me. Doesn’t the restaurant want customers? We did not have the best experience either of the 2 attempts to get a drink...

We have been to Feast for both work functions and personal meals. These dining experiences always left us wanting to come back after great meals and a well executed service.

My wife and I had been looking forward to dinner out on our anniversary and decided to head into town instead of visiting Portland for a wonderful dinner. The restaurant seemed surprisingly empty for a Thursday night and we were offered a seat at the bar or table. Seeing as though there were several open tables we chose to sit at one instead.

We ordered drinks which the waitress was kind enough to let my wife sample 2 different chardoney's before making her selection. I passed on the amazing selection of bourbon for a simple dirty martini. The martini ended up being well over seasoned with olive juice unfortunately.

I placed an order for a Sangria that never came.....so continued to drink the table water instead. Once our orders for food were placed, it seemed as though the staff had more important things to do then check in with us.

When it came time for dinner I ordered the Aged NY strip but was told it may have been out. The waitress checked and said there was 1 left so I ordered it along with a side of horseradish mashers. The steak had a significant fat cap and was cooked medium but it was the toughest steak I have ever tried to eat. The crust had been over salted and there was too much pepper. The ends were so tough I could only eat the small center portion of the cut. All this is somewhat pretty unfortunate for a $80 cut of meat....as I cut away as best I could with my steak I patiently waited for the potatoes but alas they would stay in the kitchen for the night and never make it to our table. .

My wife had ordered a salad that was quite good overall with excellent fried cheese and a toasted crouton.

Her risotto on the other hand was extremely heavy with balsamic vinegar to the point it tasted so sour it was not edible. She had also ordered the pasta but the rue that was used was flour based and was congealed by the time it made its way to the table and had a very mealy texture.

We've always loved coming to your restaurant but this experience may have left us thinking more than twice before making our way through the front door again.

Before posting this review, I sent an email to the business with the minimum expecation of a repsonse at least but after 3 weeks, still nothing so here is...