Cabezon Restaurant — Restaurant in Portland

If you’re a foodie and like restaurants with creative, flavorful, and well cooked dishes, this is a must-try in the Portland area.

Not only was the food delicious but the service was attentive and the ambiance well suited for the cuisine. The pricing was great in my opinion for the quality of food and the types of dishes served.

Here are the dishes we tried: Oysters - standard, they were fresh and the onions to spoon on top were fresh and the lemon wedge to squeeze was a great touch. Artisan cheeses - great variety of cheese accompaniments, there were fruits and nuts and crackers. The cheeses themselves ranged in terms of flavor and were generally soft. One had less flavor but the other two were creamy and flavorful. House cut fries and garlic aioli. Delicious. Well fried and seasoned with salt and the garlic aioli was a nice touch. They stayed warm surprisingly long and were fresh. Chive blini - first time trying this dish and I loved it! All of it tasted fresh, respectively, and the caviar was delicate and a nice compliment to the sour cream. Duck confit - memorable orange sauce, acceptable quantity of meat, and not especially greasy. Lamb chops - delicious reduction sauce, the olive Madeira jus was just amazing, the dumplings were light and paired well with the dish, the lamp chops were cooked to my preference - medium rare, and it was a good portion size. This dish was honestly delicious with the seasonal veggies. BASIL AND PHYLLO WRAPPED WHITE SHRIMP - really great salad!! The shrimp was cooked extremely well and the dish was unique. Large portion for the price. The noodles were a great compliment to the shrimp. Callebaut Belgian Chocolate pot de crème - this was exceptionally smooth. The chocolate was a deep and rich flavor. Lavender and honey crème brûlée - one of the most unique and tastefully done desserts I’ve ever tried. The sugar was perfectly Caramelized on top and the lavender flavor in the crème was delicate and subtle and the perfect accent to a unique take on crème brûlée. The honey was also in the crème part of the dessert but more subtle than the lavender. The crème was rich tasting and creamy. Almost forgot to mention - the asparagus soup! Delicious soup. It was light on salt but I almost preferred that they didn’t default to that for flavor. The soup wasn’t heavy or overly creamy either. Great dish to start the meal.

I can’t wait to go to this restaurant again, they change their menu daily which is so exciting! The dishes I tried even have subtle twists to what is...

I couldn't decide if I wanted to give this place 3 or 4 stars...some things really bring the rating up, others really knock it down.

The first thing to note here is the Seafood Cioppino is BOMB - if you're coming here, definitely get this. It's a little spicy but with some great cream in there to calm it down - crab, clams, octopus, shrimp...yummy yummy in my tummy.

We go the above dish along with the Sturgeon...which tasted good, but the presentation was really lackluster. Plopping it in front of us, our faces kind of fell and we definitely expected more from a $26 dish. A lot more.

Drinks....I got a cocktail called the Bee's Knees, which was yummy but a little sweeter than I'd hoped. Eric got a glass of wine that was pretty underwhelming, and the glass list was pretty short.

Dessert...this is where the 5 stars comes in - we got the Marker's Mark Profiteroles with ice cream and chocolate and hazelnuts...THIS was delicious. Wow. So good. I wanted to order a glass of port with it though and they didn't have a port list...she named off that they had some port and when I asked for details, she didn't know. I ended up just blindly ordering a Tawny, keeping my fingers crossed it wasn't too expensive. Ended up I think $8, so it was fine, but it wasn't the greatest glass I've ever had.

Service...was friendly, but slow. We waiting at least 15 minutes before we got to order drinks and another 10 minutes before our drinks came out. We weren't in a rush, but it definitely felt slower than it should have been.

I DO love the design of this place - very cool jellyfish light fixtures and beautiful dark wood seats.

I probably won't go out of my way to come back here, but wouldn't be disappointed if I ended...

Exceedingly disappointed!

I booked a table for 5 for a Saturday evening to celebrate my husband's 60th birthday. When booking online I asked if they could perhaps do a little something special to mark the occasion. It certainly was a surprise...they did absolutely nothing. I thought at the very least they might have wished my husband a Happy Birthday upon arrival, but nothing, not a word.

As far as the food goes, again extremely disappointing. Two of the non-fish items were off the menu (which was already very limited). One of our party asked to swap out a couple of vegetables that came with the pork dish. However, they could not do this, stating that the chef does not allow any changes. We do not fault the server, since she was clearly under very direct orders from the chef.

Two of our party had the pork dish which really was awful. The squash was practically raw and inedible. The the pork chop lay on a wedge of corn bread, resulting in a mushy mess beneath. I mentioned this to the server only to have the standard response of "oh, I'm so sorry about that." Under normal circumstances I would have pushed to have a deduction from the bill since half of both pork dishes were left uneaten. However, since it was a birthday gathering, I did not feel it was right to make a bad evening even worse.

On a positive note, the fish dish was fine (well it is a fish speciality restaurant after all), but our friend said he'd expected something amazing from a "New York Times-rated" restaurant.

In summary I would advise anyone against booking dinner, far less a birthday dinner, at this restaurant. I regret not making a reservation at a Lake Oswego restaurant which a friend had...