Salty's on the Columbia River — Restaurant in Portland

DISAPPOINTED. My husband and I wanted to celebrate our anniversary by having a fancy dinner. After seeing the reviews and menu, we were very excited to make reservations at Salty's. We knew we'd splurge and spend $200+, but looked forward to excellent service and food at that price point. Last night (Sat. 8/28) we arrived a few minutes before our reservation time and were greeted with "Happy Anniversary" and friendly smiles. Seated outside so we could watch the sunset. They even gave us a card wishing us a happy anniversary. Unfortunately, our experience went downhill from there. Aaron, our server, was very friendly, but seemed distracted (or perhaps he was in the weeds, server speak for too busy to handle everything.) He took a little while before greeting us. He had a large party near us, and would help them and then leave his station without glancing around to see if any other of his tables needed his attention. He took our beverage order and then very slowly our beverages came out one by one. A bottle of white wine (served without an ice bucket), one beer, one whiskey, and waters. All at different times. We had to ask that our waters be refilled. Our appetizer of clam chowder was delicious and delivered promptly. Our entrees eventually came out, and hubby's NY steak was cooked perfectly rare, as requested. His asparagus was cold, though. My halibut was covered in a bearnaise that can only be described as "gloppy". Very thick, almost congealed. But I dove right in. Didn't bother to take a photo for Instagram, because I was hungry. First bite of halibut revealed that it was lukewarm. It was cooked through. But room temp bearnaise and fish is not what I expect when I'm dropping $200 on a meal. I expected Aaron to come around and check if everything was to our liking, so I could have him take back the halibut and re-fire another one And he did...after a good 10 minutes had passed. He apologized and said he'd have them redo it on the fly. 20 minutes went by. By the time Aaron was bringing it out, my husband was finished with his meal and I had yet to eat. I asked that he package it to go. At that point, I had had a half bottle of wine, ate some clam chowder, watched my husband eat his meal, and that was it. Not exactly a stellar anniversary dinner. Aaron apologized. He admitted that he "wasn't focused". And strangely, he said, "I feel so bad. Poor baby." Not sarcastically, or snarky. Just as a way to show how badly he felt, I guess? No server should ever say "Poor baby" to a customer.

They comped my halibut, made it to-go, gave us a comped dessert in our to-go bag, and brought everything and the bill. We had to ASK to have my husband's remaining food packed up. I told Aaron that he was nice, but that he really didn't give us the service that is expected at this price point. He understood. Oddly, no member of management ever came over to seek out our feedback. I'd think after having to comp $75+ from a bill, that management might care to find out what happened. Apparently not.

So while I'm sure others have had excellent experiences at Salty's, I know we won't be going back there. Our anniversary wasn't made better by going there. It was disappointing. Merely "okay" food and mediocre service is not acceptable at this price point. I can get that at Denny's.

The photo with the halibut is what I discovered in our to-go package. Very tiny piece of halibut. I'll be eating it for lunch...

We came here for my birthday celebration. We made a reservation in advance. When we arrived the table was ready and we were seated immediately. When we sat down we were greeted by our server and he wished me a happy mother's Day instead of happy birthday. Later on in the evening my husband had to inform him that it was a celebration for my actual birthday and not for mother's day. I had simply brought a gift for my mother-in-law (who would not be with me on mother's Day) and he automatically assumed we were celebrating mother's Day even though the table had happy birthday confetti all over it. Our service took over 2 hours from start to finish. We arrived 15 minutes before our reservation, so we were there at 4:45 pm. We did not get into our car until 7:10 pm. When we first sat down the view was absolutely gorgeous and the noise level was totally manageable. But around 6:00 pm it was so hard I couldn't even hear my husband from across the table. And on top of that there was another server (male) who spoke so loud that the whole entire floor could hear what he was saying to the people he was talking to. Completely unprofessional.

I am sadly not being over the top when I write this: I had the worst fish and chips in my whole life, here. This was my birthday dinner. That fish was disgusting and unedible. It looked like they had sunk the fish into the oil and just let it sit. I have had better fried fish from McDonald's that was less greasy than whatever I was given here. The fries were cold. My husband informed me that his fish was cold as well. Oh and by the way you have to pay extra for bread? Like people are spending hundreds of dollars here on dinner and you have to pay for the bread? Not only do you have to pay for it but it was really greasy and gross.

I think the only redeeming factor was the wedge salad. I shared it with my mom and honestly should have just had it for my main meal. It was really good. The dessert was free because of my birthday and it actually was decent tasting too. But sadly these two things don't make up for the other things.

The real kicker in the whole deal was that my father and my father-in-law split the bill half and half. The server charged my father twice and never charged my father-in-law for his half. Once the staff figured it out, they called us, because we had already left. Their first solution that they offered was for us to contact my father-in-law to "venmo" us the money. In my opinion that was the most unprofessional solution to the situation when it was clearly their fault and something that they needed to fix.

We will not be...

Food was good, but the presentation of the "Seafood Tower" was vastly underwhelming. First, it wasn't a tower as other local restaurants have. It was merely a large plate with ice under some crab and oysters and several monkey dishes of sides. The oysters were passable, the cracked crab was good, but the Steelhead lox was terrible. I would much prefer the standard salmon variety. Three of the "sides (cream cheese, capers and onions) were crammed into a small monkey dish. The bay shrimp were in another small monkey dish, difficult to deal with a fork. Three dipping sauces were offered, 2 cocktail sauces and a third that wasn't well disclosed by our server. No main plate was offered to either of us, which would have given us a place upon which to work with the cracking of the crab. My wife used her uneaten seafood chowder dish as a plate. I tried using the small bread and butter plate, but that created a major mess. Our server, a gentleman with a longish beard, while well-meaning, continually use his "snappy" patter with a very loud voice, so loud, that, when he waited on other tables nearby, we couldn't cary on a conversation. We were both looking forward to the pineapple upside down cake, and ordered one for both of us. I think our server was too busy with his "patter" and mistook our order for two as an order for one. When that mistake was corrected, he placed my dessert on top of the slight mess I'd made cracking the crab. When I mentioned it to him, he said, "Oh, you can just brush that away." That's his job, especially in an establishment listed as "fine dining", and charging the higher prices. So, all in all, fairly decent food, bad presentation, loud and uneven service, but good wine and great music. Sorry-we...