Dos Hermanos Cafe — Restaurant in Portland

This is for the Dos Hermanos large vendor tables at the Happy Valley Farmer's Market. I was so looking forward to finding out what the buzz was about with DH. Fresh bread and pastries!! I got to the HV Market just after it opened last Saturday, and headed right to the DH large set-up. The tables were covered with breads and pastries of all types. But nothing was labeled. There were no price sheets, nothing labeling flavors, nothing. There were NO SIGNS anywhere. So every single person had to ask what everything was, and the price. The problem was that there were 3 children working and no adults. One kid looked 10yo, one looked 13yo, and another maybe 16yo. That's it. I bought a loaf and a pastry, and one of the kids told me $15. Now I'm questioning if they're just making up prices? Who knows, because there's no transparency and honest pricing listed anywhere. I quickly paid to get out of the way, took one bite of my pastry and almost turned right around and asked for my money back. They were serving at least 1 day-old, likely 2 day-olds, passing off as fresh-baked and charging full price. I have 30 years in the food industry, including owning a bakery. The pastry was clearly stale - it had hard and overly chewy edges; even the almonds on top were stale. Trying to pass off day-olds as fresh is about the worst thing a bakery can do, and then to charge full price??!! I feel scammed. Also, the pull apart sourdough appeared fine, but when I got home it was clearly undercooked. The inside had areas that were dense, nearly raw. I salvaged that by putting it in the oven to bake longer, but twice-baked is never as good. Highly disappointed in my experience, and one has to wonder, does DH serve day-old every week at markets, and people just don't complain? Put up honest and transparent sign with prices, hire adults to manage and serve fresh. For the prices charged, this shouldn't...

I wanted to try this place out for a while. I was already a big fan of their English muffins (seriously the best) and the pastries I have tried and liked. The chopped sandwiches were fascinating and I finally gave them a try today. I am bummed to say they are not to my taste. I get that the “chopped” thing is their signature but it takes away rather than adds to the flavor. Mixing everything together results in no individual flavors coming forward and you end up with a flavor that is not what you would expect and not in a good way. It was a homogeneous disappointment. Also, every bite I took a chunk of ingredients fell out.

I tried the Bada Bing and the Irish Goodbye. The Bada Bing tasted overwhelmingly of peppers. The peppers being in every bite means you don’t get any of the flavors of the meats or cheese. The flavor result is a mildly spicy salad on bread. It ate maybe a ¼ of it. The Irish Goodbye (basically a Reuben) was seriously disappointing. Again, i'm convinced the chopping and mixing destroys the flavor. I couldn’t taste corned beef or sauerkraut or swiss on that sandwich. It again was just a homogenized mess. I only ate about ¼. Short of it, won’t be going there for those sandwiches again I am sorry to say.

The portions are huge, I got half sandwiches and they are the size of what I would call a whole. But if I was going to spend almost $30 there I would just buy bread...

Fantastic bakery, okay sandwich, bad service.

I’m really disappointed to review Dos Hermanos this way after loving the bakery for quite a while. The bread and pastries are top notch, special shout-out to the incredible English muffins.

Unfortunately the sandwiches don’t hit the high mark set by the baked goods. They’re okay but lack depth of flavor and are carried by the bread. I enjoyed the beast master sandwich more than the others, but I would say it’s still pretty far behind an average Lardo sandwich.

The interior is fine, and the view of the bakery operation is enjoyable. But, it’s a very small space that packs the tables in too tightly.

The main issue, and my impetus for writing a review, is that the service speed was just embarrassingly bad for a sandwich shop. It took 55 minutes to get four half-sandwiches ordered from their predetermined menu on a mildly busy Sunday afternoon.

While the staff member we ordered from was warm, there was no heads up about the wait, or check-in during the 55 minutes. I really would have expected better service for $18 half-sandwiches that don’t include chips or a drink.

I’ll definitely be returning for the baked goods and am rooting for them to find success with the new location, but my recent experience was a huge miss. Hopefully it was...