Taste Wine Cafe — Restaurant in West Linn

I hope the management reads this review, because I think Taste could be amazing with just a few small tweaks. Even without the tweaks I still had an overall great experience and so I'm giving a 5 star review.

The food is what I mostly want to talk about. It ranged from excellent to not-that-great, which surprised me because you don't often see a range like that at a restaurant. Most of what wasn't that great though I think could be easily fixed.

The great (please excuse me if I don't get the names of the dishes exactly right):

Kid's Spaghetti & Meatballs: We got this for my 3 year old. She loved it and when I tasted it I understood why. It was really fantastic. I assume/hope there is an adult portion, but if not, please do put it on the menu!

Poached Pear Salad: The poached pear slices and toasted nuts went together so well on this very-well dressed salad. One of the best salads I have had in quite some time.

French Fries: The fries here are just spectacular. Perfectly cooked to the point I wasn't sure I wanted to dip them in anything. I didn't try the Rosemary Fry appetizer, but rather just regular fries.

Portion size: I really thought everything came in great portions.

The good:

Steak + Frittes : Overall this was quite good. I think it could have been excellent if we had ordered it medium-rare (which of-course is the best way to order steak), but one of the people in our group likes their steak well-done. I don't hold it against the restaurant at all that I only put this in the good category, it was our fault for ordering it medium rare.

Roast Beef Sandwich : I had the side caesar salad with it and it was happy with it as a side. The sandwich itself was excellent. The problem was the side of Au Jus for dipping. The flavor was great, but it was just too salty. Had it been less salty (which I imagine is an easy fix for the restaurant) then this sandwich could have been in the excellent category too.

The bad :

Clam and Sausage appetizer : This appetizer did not taste very good. The clams were small and there wasn't any clam flavor to them. The sausage was bland and didn't pair well with the clams anyway. I think this dish would be better with larger/better clams and simply cooked in a wine/butter sauce and ditch the sausage.

The Bread: While we didn't order the bruschetta, bruschetta did come with the clams. I think toasting the bread is the way to go, but this bread was as hard as a rock and tasted slightly stale. Again, I think this is probably not all that hard to fix, so I wanted to give ownership this feedback.

Overall I was impressed with Taste Wine Cafe and I will definitely be back. I hope my criticisms are seen in the spirit of improvement as Taste is right on the cusp of just being...

Disappointing Dining Experience — Wouldn’t Recommend

My friends and I visited this restaurant on Friday July 24th around 8 pm, hoping for a nice night out. The atmosphere was pleasant, which initially raised our expectations. Unfortunately, the food was a complete disappointment.

I ordered the spaghetti with meatballs, but the meatballs were heavily seasoned with garlic salt—so much so that I couldn’t eat them. It’s baffling how a basic dish like spaghetti can be so poorly executed. My husband and a friend both ordered salmon, expecting a simple, well-prepared dish, but it was served plain—just salmon, with no vegetables or sides. My husband described it as “meh,” indicating it wasn’t anything special or flavorful.

Another friend ordered a spicy prawn pasta it was way too spicy—so much that it was almost inedible. She likes spicy food, but this was overwhelming and lacked balance. As for the flat iron steak, it was small and extremely chewy, and not worth the price.

I mentioned to waitress it was way too salty and pasta was way too spicy. She said she would pass it on. All the portions were small, and everyone left still hungry and disappointed.

We were excited to try a new spot, we started out with a nice bottle of wine to enjoy. Sadly, this experience was a letdown on every level—poor preparation, lack of being prepared right, minimal portion sizes, and overall disappointing quality. It’s hard to believe a restaurant can open without knowing how to execute basic meals properly.

Overall, I cannot recommend this restaurant. We left disappointed, still hungry, and unlikely to return. There are much better...

My husband used to work for a boutique wine distributor in DC and worked with many high-end restaurants. He said Taste Wine Cafe's wine list is truly exciting. We took my husband's best friend (P) and his wife there for dinner. Combined, my husband and P have over 30 years of work experience in the wine industry. The three of them ordered several glasses of wine and enjoyed all of them.

For appetizers we shared the blistered peppers and the bruschetta board. We ordered a linguini chicken cacio e pepe, beef dip sandwich, spicy spaghetti pomodoro with shrimp, and grilled lamb burger. All of the plates were licked clean except my beef dip sandwich because the portion size was extra generous. (I finished the rest of the sandwich after I got home).

Our friends live about half an hour away from Taste but said they'd definitely take out-of-town friends and family there. If you enjoy trying new wines that you can't find anywhere else, you need to...