Verde Cocina En La Perla — Restaurant in Portland

My 1st visit to Portland Oregon was an amazing eye opener to experience Another City here for my yoga workshops. My hotel was in the downtown area and spotted Verde Covina since their awning caught my eye for my favorite color is Turquoise! Once entering fell in love with the Earthy wooden Decore and beautiful lighting.

The staff was so friendly made me feel welcomed and ordered their Drip Coffee. Noticed and appreciated Verde Cocina's Gluten Free and Vegan Style menu since that is the Beauty of Portland's healthy lifestyle. My first meal started off with the Vegetable soup which was seasoned perfectly and ordered one of my Favorite dishes Chile Relleno. Absolutely Astonishingly the Best Chille Relleno dish tasted for it was filled with Fresh vegetables and noticed a Sweet Crunch! Asked the sweet server what fruit was used as the ingredient in which she informed me was Apple's what a delight & refreshing way and finished the whole dish!

After my second day of training had to go back for to eat and once again the Chef Lupe who was so kind enough to introduce himself told me the Enchilada special. There were 3 Enchildalas freshly filled with different meats, vegetables, and cheese mixed with 2 different sauces and my Favorite was the Sunny side Egg on top.

The Ambaince was so laid back with their free Wi-Fi so enjoyed my time on my tablet and had time to meet the staff. The server and Chef informed me it was a family ran business so made perfect Sense for you can feel and taste the Love in every Dish. Had the Honor of meeting 2 of their talented and hard working Brother's Miguel and Don. Was so nice to meet such friendly folks who are now my Friends. Don who runs the 2nd out of 3 locations in Portland, invited me to Hillsdale location since my 3rd night in Portland, was staying in Tigard which Don told me wasn't too far from where I was staying.

Visited the Hillsdale Verde Cocina on a Saturday evening before closing time for a cocktail & Must Declare Don is by far the Best Bartender and made my Strawberry & Lime Margarita to perfection! Once again met the staff and socialized at the bar with the local's and met another guest who happened to be from Orange County Califoria visiting to Celebrate their Grandmother's 80h Birthday in which they rented the whole evening at the Verde Cocina RESTAURANT!

The Family and Staff take Pride and Joy of their Establishment and feeling the Warmth, Love and Joy truly shows. Looking forward to Dining with them on my next visit to Portland and would recommend anyone who's visiting Portland to try their Cuisine since the Locals already know how Perfect their Establishment is ran from their ratings. Thank you so much to the Verde Cocina Family! Salud and much Gratitude for Letting me Experience Portland as it's...

Celiac Review Oh. My. Gosh. Hands down one of the best dedicated gluten free spots in PDX!!! Mocktails - We ordered the Anne’s Lemonade that featured Lavendar and Lemon notes. After placing our order, they were missing one of the ingredients and offered to make it slightly differently which was still absolutely INCREDIBLE. (See #3 for tea review~) Food - Not only is this place dedicated gluten free so I was able to enjoy every 👏🏼 single 👏🏼 item on the menu without concern for my safety (NOTE—does have dairy items but there are vegan/vegetarian options), but it was truly top tier with each dish we had; We had Mac n Cheese with Pork Belly Bacon, which was probably my favorite dish (PORK BELLY OUT OF THIS WORLD!!). We also had the Verde Enchiladas, as well as Pork Mole (menu name may be slightly different?). Each item was truly so delicious in its own right. We also had a black bean cheese dip with chips as an appetizer, and when our food was taking longer to come, our server brought us an extra plate with chips, salsas, and fresh chunky guacamole—which brings me to… Our Server - Jeff gave our entire party the upmost and outstanding service I’ve had from any establishment. Jeff was incredibly knowledgeable about the menu, going as far as making suggestions and offering incredible substitutions when applicable. A member of our party got teas that A) Came in a loose leaf fashion already brewed together so he just had to pour and sip (see photo), and B) TASTED INCREDIBLE. So much so our party member asked if he could get the name of the tea and Jeff went as far as bringing some teas to our table to show us the labels (another pleasant surprise, they support local tea business in Bend—we love small biz that supports other small biz!!) as well as smell the different options and let us take pictures of the menu. Additionally, as we got our bill, we expressed wishing we had come for brunch so we could have tried the horchata French toast, and he said we could still get it!!! We’ll have to remember to update this after we try it, but just from the looks of it and based on the previous dishes we’ve tried, you can assume we...

This is a go-to place for us, lunch, brunch, dinner, perhaps 6 blocks from our apartment. The food is always wonderful; the mashed sweet potatoes are things to dream about, the guacamole consistently excellent, the steak fajitas tender and wonderful. Nothing has ever been less than good, many things, including the cocktails have been just what we wanted/needed in any given meal.

But the truly stellar aspect of the restaurant is the service., It has always been welcoming, attentive, responsive, without being hovering. This last time we had a waitress who was something special ... I think of her as Morticia, tall, black dress, glides across the floor. Knowledgeable and informative about the menu and everything on it, she's also funny enough to do standup, wry, witty, brash (we're originally from NY, brash is like mother's milk); she made the meal a total delight for all of us from the moment we sat down until it ended, and now days later I still thinly warmly about the evening. Plus there was a symbiosis between Morticia and her bearded manager that was seamless ... if even a tiny thing went awry (the guac came with the meal) they were both on it immediately and then didn't charge us for the guac. Together they made it an absolutely perfect way to spend an evening with our adult offspring.

There's a chasm between dining and hospitality. So often restaurants focus on the former and don't seem to give a damn about the latter. But the truth is that if you eat out more than very rarely, it's all about how welcome you feel, how cared for, how at home.

This is about the most comfortable I have felt at dinner in a place where I didn't have a tv remote in my hand as I can recall recently ... thanks to all there for a lovely and a tasty (and a filling!) evening (I had the 3 steak special and wobbled home content, having been warned by Morticia often enough that it was a LOT of meat, that I had to point out that that caution was not needed for a guy...