The Gladstone Coffee and Pizza

Why didn’t anyone ever tell me that Gladstone is totally weird? Not only is Gladstone Pizza actually The Gladstone Coffee, magically transformed from bins-furniture cafe into bins-furniture pizza place after 5 PM, but some friends and I felt like we had been plopped into Inland Empire while waiting for our bumbling waiter to stop fishing for non-sequiturs and take our order. There was a woman a few picnic tables behind us who couldn’t stop plunging her hands into her tank top to show off her new, full chest tattoo. There was a smoking patch of ground (yes, smoking, and yes, substantially) about a stone’s throw from our table that was the prime entertainment for bantering barflys at the Gladstone Pub next door. There was a group of kids trying to run cars off of 39th with a basketball. And there was a long, long wait for our pizza.

A former Gladstone Coffee employee told me that the shop started baking pies after the manager decided that profits needed a boost. It sounds like a good idea in theory: the Steele/Holgate/Gladstone sector is in need of a pizza joint that dishes out a bit more bite than Woodstock’s Pizza Roma. Gladstone has played its cards well — they’ve hopped on the Portland bandwagon and only cook with meats from nearby Otto’s Sausages, and get their dough, sauce, cheeses, and veggies from local sources. Besides pizza, the shop offers salads and pasta dishes that I wasn’t able to try, though our waiter compensated for the spotty service (he was the only person waiting on a full house) by serving us a complimentary appetizer of roasted asparagus, salami, and coppa. I figured, at least the guy is trying to be nice, but I’m not sure if the other patrons equally sympathized with his brisk beer run/escape attempt up to the nearby Plaid Pantry when the shop’s Hop Lava IPA tap went dry.

This guy was starting to get suspicious. After biting into our $20 half-margherita-half-andouille sausage pie, I couldn’t help but feel that he must have thrown a veil over my eyes before he pranced around the sidewalk wildfire and shouted something about coal mining. Everything smelled good and looked great, but Gladstone had served me one of the blandest Portland pies I’ve ever eaten. With all snarkiness aside, Gladstone’s crust is delicious, and reminiscent of my beloved east coast crusts that most Portland pizza shops will never get close to emulating. It’s perfectly charred, has a great crunchy underside that’s counteracted by a soft and moist topping side, and holds rank alongside Sellwood’s Tastebud for quality. In fact, if Gladstone were to only serve crust with a little bit of oil on top, I’d say they make the best pizza bianca in town.

It’s the toppings that spoiled the pie — the sauce was under-salted, overloaded with garlic, and a bit thinly spread. The cheese was an aged mozzarella (not fresh, as we hoped the price would entail) that melted into a tasteless film on top of the pie, and was even more disappointing when andouille sausage sat on top of it. The sausage and cheese were polar opposites on that pie, and rather than finding an interesting flavor through the tension, I just couldn’t figure out what I was eating anymore. I also prefer a pie that’s cooked a bit crisp, and found Gladstone’s pizza too slippery; it didn’t help that the andouille made the situation a whole lot greasier.

Gladstone has some work to do if they want to transform their neighborhood cafe into a respectable pizza spot. Our waiter was facing a tough night — the place was understaffed and the tap went dry, but he didn’t really respond as a waiter usually does, and should do. Instead, he acted like an awkward barista stuck in a foreign situation. It’s great that the shop is trying to use local ingredients, but that doesn’t help things if the pizza is just underwhelming. Rumor has it that Gladstone has purchased a neighboring building and plans to expand into a full-scale restaurant. Let’s hope that they expand service and re-plan their recipe, too.

MK

The Gladstone Coffee and Pizza
3813 SE Gladstone St (map)
(503)-775-1537
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Tastebud

As it’s been a while, I’ll try to keep this review brief. The strength of my memory, however, is strong, on account of one of the best ‘zas in Portland. Yes, it is pricier than some for their speciality pies (though no worse than Hammy’s), but for a tasty, luscious, fresher-than-fresh pizza, one must look no further. Except maybe Apizza Scholls, the review for which is also long overdue.

First, a bit of history:

Tastebud started as a farm. An organic farm, actually, and in 2000 began making wood-fired baked goods for the Portland Farmer’s Market. These baked goods were good. Very good. And last summer (2008), chef/owner Mark Doxtader opened the restaurant on SE Milwaukee, across from the Aladdin. Tipped off by Jeremy, the owner of Cellar Door Coffee Roasters, JMR, EDP, and I took a ride down to the dining room in August to get a pie to go. I’ve been going back ever since.

The first thing you notice about Tastebud is that it really feels like a dining room. Not in a restaurant sense, but in a this-is-your-aunt’s-house kind of way. At first, I felt the space strange, almost artificial seeming, but now I’m fond of it; mirrors, vases, mismatched plates, and all. There’s also the smell – the wonderful aroma of a wood-fired brick oven doing its thing back in the kitchen. Tastebud offers other hearth-roasted appetizers and goodies (including bagel brunches on the weekends) and some delicious salads – on a good night, their caesar with bagel-croutons may be the best in town. But that’s on a good night, and quality, I must admit, has seemed to vary.

But on to the ‘za.

The most amazing thing about Tastebud’s pizza is the crust. Crisp, firm, dusted with flour on the outside; fluffy, airy, soft, and moist on the inside. The flavor is there too, with just the right amount of salt to bring out the flavors of their dough. The sauce is also quite good, and I’m always struck by a faint fennel taste in the bright, clean tasting tomato sauce. The mozzarella, it has to be said, isn’t the best. It’s good, sometimes very good, but occasionally it will taste a little too briny and once they ran out and used different cheeses. When they use fresh mozzarella it is amazing (creamy, goey, tender), but sometimes they don’t and it is a little-bit lacking. But not very much. You can also get their specialty pizzas (but be careful, because sometimes they don’t tell you if the pizza has sauce or just olive oil) or you can customize the basic cheese, starting at a reasonable $14, with arugula, various meats, olives, and other seasonal items for a few extra bucks. I can eat a whole one, but I think less gregarious folks can (should) split one between two, or even three people if you get an appetizer.

Service is always very kind, though sometimes a bit slow. In the earlier days, I was stuck waiting for water, waiting to order, or waiting for my pie, but in recent months, this hasn’t been a problem.

Minor flaws exist, but I still can’t think of many pies and rather be eating right now. Now. Maybe I’ll go back tonight.

IZ

(oh: they usually have a pretty good beer selection: Caldera, Hair of the Dog, and some others. Wine, I’ve been told, is also good.)

Tastebud
3220 SE Milwaukie (map)
(503) 234 0330
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Nostrana

Sometimes, when I’m eating, I just don’t feel the need to be in a fancified warehouse. It’s not that I get vertigo looking up at those high, beamed ceilings, nor do I think about all the bugs and critters that may be inhabiting such lofty wood; these things don’t bother me. Perhaps its just that the emptiness of the space above my head seems to demand filling. Maybe one must look up with soaring ideas of how wonderful the food may be, eyes rolling to the tops of their sockets, tracing the beams, if one is so lucky, to put words to the sublime occurrence dancing across one’s taste-buds. Well, most-likely not.
Sitting in a corner booth this weekend at Nostrana, the space above my head felt decidedly vacant. This was to be my second trip to the well-known eatery in a few years and, I feel bad to say, I could never understand how it was ranked Restaurant of the Year in 2006. Don’t worry, I’ve had other things besides the pizza to make sure that my feelings were not in error and, across the board, I’ve felt let down. Their menu seems so interesting, ingredients so fresh; even on the plate the food looks amazing. Once it enters the mouth, on the other hand, not much lives up to Nostrana’s impressive pedigree. I don’t mean to say the food is bad, which it is not per se, its just lacking, as if each dish needed one thing, one spice, one technique to bring all the flavors together, but that something just wasn’t there.

As this is a Pizza Review, I’ll leave the other foodstuffs to the side and focus my efforts on a “traditionally” “uncut” Margherita pie. House mozzarella, tomato, basil, with added arugula, and proscuitto. Fancy. I’m sorry that the picture I have doesn’t do justice to the wonderful look of this pie, but you’ll have to believe me that my mouth was watering.

With the commencement of the cutting, however, things started to go downhill. In the middle, there seemed to be a pool of the most liquified elements of the sauce and melted cheese, which caused unnecessary difficulty in cutting a slice. Upon reaching the crust with the knife, I had a ball of dough and toppings, which I had to fold over into a sort of calzone in order even to attempt a bite. The sauce was good, very simple; the crust, inconsistent; the cheese, a bit over cooked; the arugula, a bit greasy; the proscuitto, very nice. On their own, each component had flavor, texture, and was most certainly fresh, but together, I found them bland. It was as if all the flavors canceled each other out. Very unfortunate.
Overall, Nostrana greeted me with high expectations and, when all was said and done, I left unsatisfied and with a hole in my wallet.

(Other notes: Service was aloof. They have Caldera IPA in a can.)

IZ

Nostrana
1401 SE Morrison (map)
(503) 234-2427
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