Being a SW Portland resident, I’m always looking for good places to eat in my area. My Johns Landing neighborhood doesn’t have a wealth of great restaurants, so I find myself venturing to the eastside or downtown for meals, especially breakfast, but a few gems exist in the southwest hills neighborhoods of Hillsdale and Multnomah Village. A shining star in the Hillsdale Shopping Center used to be Three Square Grill, but after a recent brunch there, all I can say is that I left feeling sad, even a bit depressed.
Three Square Grill opened in 1995, just after I moved to Portland, and it’s first years were glorious. It gave the neighborhood, bifurcated by busy Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway, a needed destination restaurant. It featured Southern-influenced cuisine made with fresh and local ingredients, before that was a cool thing to do. The place was lauded by the food literati and its tiny waiting area routinely spilled out onto the sidewalk, especially at brunch, when its semi-cajun food and fresh baked specialties wafted to eager noses.
Jump forward 16 years and the Three Square is a shell of its former self. Now most restaurants go through cycles of popularity and quality, and I’m hopeful that this place can pull itself up again, but after the depressing brunch eaten here over the weekend, I’m not optimistic.
Three Square Grill recently added its brunch back after some time off, but the throngs have not followed. If the greeting at the door is any indication, it’s no wonder. A hipster-sloppy young man barely greeted us and gestured towards a table with what may have been a monosyllabic grunt. Upon being seated, we noticed that the once vibrant textured walls appeared bleak and in need of a shine, even with local artwork already in place. Then we noticed the table linens – crinkled and messy from a lack of ironing. The wooden chairs had dust and grime on the corners and obviously hadn’t been cleaned thoroughly in a while. We should have gotten up to leave, but hunger kept us in place.
A vacant waitress appeared and took our drink order. It took over 10 minutes to get a cup of coffee, and when it came, the requested cream was nowhere to be found. My wife’s hot cocoa was covered in whipped cream, which gave way to a cup of watery chocolate. Not a good start.
When the uninspired waitress took our order, she walked off, vacant-eyed and with nary a smile. The two other servers in this relatively small space wandered around aimlessly as well, one without a discernible outfit or apron. In a word – joyless.
The wait for food was luckily short, but the delivery was near silent. Plates were plopped in front of us without a “can I get you anything else” or any other words of encouragement. My Crescent City benedict sounded great on paper – poached eggs with andouille sausage and porcini gravy. The execution lacked on every element. The andouille lacked flavor and punch, and the porcini gravy had little mushroom depth. The eggs were over-poached, leaving the yolks without any runny consistency. At least the red potatoes had some spice and texture. My wife’s Eggs Faberge were nearly inedible. They were supposed to be scrambled with smoked salmon, scallions and tomato, but the ingredients were all added at the wrong time, making the eggs into a watery mush and leaving more water on the plate than edible content. The salmon was lost in the mix, and after only 6 bites, she shoved it away. The host/waiter came by and yanked the plate away. Not once did the wait staff come by and ask how anything was so we could let them know. It seemed as though they wanted us gone and didn’t give a lick if we liked our food. We paid quickly, though it took far too long to get our card back, and left as fast as we could.
The entire atmosphere within the restaurant seemed to be living under a rain cloud. Service was mopey and detached, food was bad to worse, and a once shining sun in the hills faded into oblivion. So sad.
In a completely predictable and trite turn of events, recently resigned Representative Anthony D. Weiner (D-NY), took a job as the new spokesman of Johnsonville Sausage, makers of Johnsonville Brats.