Jake's Famous Crawfish — Restaurant in Portland

If you find yourself in Portland and feeling even vaguely civilized or nostalgic or hungry, you might do well to stumble into Jake's Famous Crawfish. It's a place that smells of butter and ghosts. My group of roughly thirty human beings was herded into the Cascade Room, which is as charming as a parlor in a novel your grandmother once read. Old wood, old mirrors, old lamps, old Portland. Also, quite warm. Not metaphorically. The kind of warm that makes you wish for a personal iceberg. They brought in fans, bless them, but the laws of thermodynamics held firm.

Appetizers were laid out on a table in the back like an offering to the gods of appetite. The crab cakes were sublime, crisp and rich, like something a coastal millionaire might dream about. The calamari was fried to that rare balance between rubber band and cloud. Brie and crackers and vegetables rounded it out. And there was sour cherry jam. Why sour cherry jam? Because somebody at Jake's is a poet.

Now. You go to a place that proudly calls itself "Famous Crawfish" and find no crawfish on the menu for your group event. This is the sort of irony I've made a lifetime of noting, but I forgive them. I selected the stuffed salmon and it was a triumph. The crab and shrimp were tucked inside like hidden treasure and the whole dish sang. My clam chowder was warm and briny and satisfying. My tablemates had steak and pasta, and reported them both to be rather good. The pasta was a veritable mountain of boiled carbs covered in fresh vegetables. As a vegetarian, she did not seem disappointed despite it being the only choice. The steak looked tasty, but the young woman who ordered it's face had the forlorn melancholy of someone who now knew they made the wrong choice. So it goes.

The bar is a well-oiled machine of mischief. I had a Bulleit Old Fashioned, executed perfectly, which is to say it made the world seem kinder. Someone else ordered something called the Aromatized and Smoked, which arrived like a magician's trick involving bourbon and literal fire. It was smoked at the table and smelled like the kind of bad idea that turns into a good story.

Dessert was key lime pie. It was above average but not worthy of the reputation that had preceded it.

As for service, we had a two-part system. One half was a seasoned professional who moved through the dining room like she had done it since childhood. The other half was a young man who seemed surprised each time he successfully carried a plate. Friendly, both of them, but slow. Not tragically slow. Just... unfussed.

In the end, Jake's is the kind of place where you forgive the small things because the big things: the food, the atmosphere, the history, are very much worth it. If you want a taste of Portland that isn't trying too hard to be Portland, this is it. Bring your appetite and...

Upon entering this den of seafood delights my wife leaned over and whispered "We may be underdressed"

Looking around at the white jacketed wait staff and beautifully assembled wood paneling, than down at my graphic t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers, I told her "Naw we're good" and we walked up to the hostess stand.

Who didn't even blink an eye asking how many.

From the start you feel like you've walked into a 1930s upscale restaurant, and you're treated as such.

Ordering our drinks my wife had the cherry mule(which tasted terrible to me, but she loved it so no points lost here). While I had the much more manly "Berry Mojito". Which was delicious.

The table bread that was brought was light and fluffy with a hard crust, served with a wonderful plain whipped butter.

We started off with two dozen raw oysters. Letting our waitress know our tastes and she recommended a few. They were both amazing. Although I don't know if it's how they're shucked on the west coast compared to the east coast but we couldn't slurp em. But they were fresh and fine. And we even got a bonus 1 on one of the platters! (A gentleman always offer a bonus oyster to his wife first, which she didn't turn down as she shouldn't)

Then into the entrees!

She had Jake's Famous Étouffée. Which I still can only pronounce half the time, but not all of us did a semester of college in Louisiana. A wonderful brown gravy stew like mix of shrimp, crawfish, and rice. (it comes with chicken but the wife asked them to hold that. Heh bet that chef looked funny standing there holding that chicken. I wonder if he still is).

As for moi? The Dungeness Crab Leg Tortellini caught my eye, and ended up filling my stomach. My lord. This dish. Bards who've tried this dish probably compose 300 stanza epics about this dish. I honestly think Stairway To Heaven might be about this dish. The sherry crab blue cheese(very light note on the blue cheese) sauce probably came into being with the big bang and traveled straight down the timeline to the man that figured out how to make it for this restaurant. I plan to have many sleepless nights trying to recreate this in my home kitchen in FL. It's that good.

Unfortunately by this time we were too stuffed for dessert. Although walking out we saw they had creme brulee and my wife thought about knocking me out and heading back to the table for some, her cooler side prevailed.

All said, this is less of a dinner out and more of a dinner experience.

And it's an experience I plan to have again next time I find myself...

UPDATE: I waited another month after completing the survey that the restaurant requested here. (It was basically the same thing I'd already submitted and mentioned in the review itself, anyway). No response.

How disappointing, especially for a place I used to enjoy. If you decide to go, I hope you have better luck, with no stray wood chunks and a better customer experience.

I went to Jake's Famous Crawfish for dinner a few weeks ago, and I was really looking forward to a nice meal. Instead, I was served a salmon pasta that was excessively mustard forward, with an added surprise ingredient - an actual chunk of hard wood. (See attached video.) I'm very lucky I tried to poke it instead of scooping it up with my fork because I would've likely hurt myself.

Honestly, I understand that things happen sometimes. And the server was nice and tried to figure out where the heck that wood chunk might have come from. This was not her fault. But at no point after being made aware of the issue did a manager come over and offer even an acknowledgment. Only after I asked, was I allowed a different replacement item (listed at $5 more) without being charged the difference. That was it. It felt like I was basically shrugged off. Maybe because I stayed calm and didn't make a scene? Regardless, this was not the experience I would've expected when I walked in. The reality is, I didn't even enjoy the other dish - Partly because it truly wasn't that great (a real bummer because it was delicious the last time I had it) and partly because finding a gross random object in your food makes it harder to enjoy your dinner, in general.

That night, I received a feedback survey from the parent company, Landry's. I took the time to share what happened and to voice my concerns. And I waited. It's been a few weeks with no response. So I'm adding my review now, after allowing plenty of opportunity for a follow-up that never happened.

I can say I've had a couple particularly memorable meals at Jake's over the years. To me, taking care of the customer experience is what sets nicer places apart. So I was genuinely surprised and disappointed by this latest experience. Maybe things have just gone downhill in the meantime. To be fair, I suppose this meal was actually memorable, too. Only this time, I'd...