Jake's Grill — Restaurant in Portland

Jake's Grill was very conveniently located across the street from our hotel. The food and drinks were pretty good. In fact, we came here twice during our four day stay in Portland. We mistakenly thought this was Jake's Crawfish, which was one of the restaurants I wanted to try while in town, but I'm glad we stumbled upon this instead.

The first time, we came in on a Saturday evening for happy hour. Yes, they have happy hour (bar only) even on weekends from 4 to 6 PM! This would be unheard of in NYC. They have both drink and food specials. For drinks, I had the Pear-Adise (Absolut Pear, lime juice, simple syrup, orange juice, sprite). I'm not normally a fan of flavored vodkas but I was in a pear-y mood and I'm really glad I ordered this. It was really good, and not overly sweet. I ended up getting two of these! For food, we had:

Raw Oyster Shooters - this was very meh. Unfortunately, it was drowning in cocktail sauce so that's all I tasted. I couldn't even taste the oyster

Dungeness Crab and Lobster Dip - this was basically like an artichoke dip with lobster. It was really good (but rich) and is served with some fresh pita bread

American Kobe Beef Carpaccio (served with baby arugula, truffle oil, garlic oil, crostini) - this was my favorite. Everything just went really well together. It was like having a mini (raw) beef sandwich

The second time, we came on a Sunday night because my husband noticed they have a prime rib special on Sunday nights. This time, I tried the 2 Berry Punch cocktail (DL Franklin vodka, orange and lemon juice, blackberries, strawberries, simple syrup). I could only have one because it was way too sweet for me. For food, to start off, we ordered half a dozen oysters and some New England clam chowder to share. The chowder was a nice way to start the meal. The oysters on the other hand were just mediocre. Some of them were not shucked correctly. As for the special, for $36, you get two pieces of prime rib, mashed potatoes, carrots & green beans, and a soup or salad. This was pretty good but I must say that the star of the show was actually the salad. It wasn't a typical mixed salad, but it also had mandarin orange, candied walnuts, blue cheese, dried cranberries, with a raspberry vinaigrette. I don't even like walnuts but something about it just worked. For my main, I ordered the Northwest Cedar Plank Salmon (lemon thyme risotto, seasonal vegetable, harvest squash purée). I usually don't like cooked salmon because it tends to be overcooked but I really wanted to try the salmon up in the Pacific Northwest since it's supposed to be good. Unfortunately, it was in fact overcooked. But I did like the harvest squash puree - it was unique.

Overall, I think I enjoyed the happy hour experience better than the full dinner experience. I would recommend just coming for the happy hour specials and...

Came here for a nice early dinner with my guy. We ordered a dozen oysters on a half shell which were very good. We had mimosas to start and then for our entree I ordered the chicken fettuccine and my guy ordered the sirloin. My fiancé raved the entire dinner about how perfectly cooked his steak was, he liked the mash potatoes but I suspect they use heavy whipping cream in the preparation which made it too heavy for his palate half way in. My fettuccine was delicious, only nitpick is, since it came in a sauce, I heavily suspect they didn't season the chicken at all. When I had bites in my mouth, it tasted very bland. But there were lots of delicious mushrooms and the sauce was good. The biggest bummer to our dinner was our server, Ellen. I, myself, am a server as well so I tend not to be an overly picky diner but this was probably the worst service I've had at any establishment in awhile. She ignored our table constantly, like she was ready to take our order and I asked how big of a portion the salmon was, she didn't know so went to ask. When she came back with the size she just spit the number at me and walked away, didn't take our order as she initially was about to do. She also had no idea about anything on the menu, which is fine I suppose but she got a drink menu for my fiancé, when she came back with my drink she promptly about faced and sped away. I said excuse me to try to get her attention, so loud the table of 10 next to me all turned and looked at me, and she still walked away like she hadn't heard me. As a result it left annoyed my companion and he ended up not ordering a drink at all. We did have a very nice woman named Jennifer who dropped our food off and was very sweet and answered our questions as to how they perfectly cooked my fiances steak. But our server actively avoided our table, we waited for her to return for 15 minutes after we finished our food and ended up having to flag another server to get boxes and a bill. I wanted to say something but my fiancé didn't want me to, I always leave a tip, 10% being for atrocious service and that's what I wanted to do but my fiancé said I should leave 15% in case they had to share with the house. Abysmal service for more of an upscale...

Really bad experience.

I stayed at the sentenial hotel. I was really disappointed that even though the restaurant is located in the lobby of the sentenial, they only offer room service for three hours between 7am-10am.

It was 5pm and we wanted room service. Our hotel information cards stated to order room service, you must order online and pick up.

We did that.

I went down to pick our food up when they stated it was ready.

I waited 15+ additional minutes.

The hostess brought up my order, but I noticed I was missing my steak.

The hostess handed me half my order and said since they forgot my steak, they're firing it now and it will be ready soon.

I was upset that I was handed half my order... its getting soggy, and asked them to refire everything.

I waited another 20+ minutes.

Got my food and went back to my hotel room.

Realized we had no utensils. I told them multiple times I was a hotel guest... in my mind that communicated we needed utensils.

Went back downstairs, told them I had no utensils... they replied "oh my gosh, you didn't get utensils??", waited for utensils.

Went back upstairs.

Realized I was given no condiments. No ketchup for the fries, no tartar sauce for the fish and chips...

Not worth another trip to the restaurant. My fried food was already soggy and I didn't want to spend another 15 minutes getting condiments after my trip to find utensils.

The next morning, we ordered breakfast.

They messed up our order again, we had to wait another 15 minutes to get our complete order, while the rest of our food dies.

I spent $200+ at this restaurant and received worse service and food than McDonald's.

100% truth, McDonald's would have provided better food and better service than Jake's.

If you're looking to splurge on a nice dinner like I was... stay far away from this place. I spent a lot of money for a nice experience, and was completely disappointed.

I paid for a nice, luxurious experience, and felt completely scammed. I want my money back. Should have gone to McDonald's...