R. Palate is . . .

Ya know, it's hard to explain. I am making the website for them free of charge because I love the place that much. The food is amazing, the staff are friendly and the free wifi, chalkboard tables and downtown location make it the ideal place for a working lunch. Plus, they put up with me. That's worth a lot. I guess I should point out that this website is, indeed, under construction.

If you work downtown, get lunch here. If you don't, quit your job and find one that lets you work downtown, even if you have to trade an investment banker job for job cleaning up after the police horses downtown. It's worth it, trust me.

After you shower off the horse byproducts, stop in for dinner after work. It will help you get ready for taking a date there later that night. Order the bacon-wrapped dates stuffed with Oregon hazelnuts and blue cheese, drizzled with honey. Even if the date goes sour, that appetizer alone will make up for it.

A word of caution: the guys that run this place are absolute food geeks. They have formal education in food, a genuine passion for food and a hobby mainly involving preparing food. They are prone to experiments and often come up with rather odd-sounding ideas that would never occur to people (like the thyme-infused sorbet) who did not spend their youth reading cookbooks as if they were sneaking glances at their dad's porn stash. Leave them alone for ten minutes, and they tend to wander over to the fridge and start messing with the natural order of things. They have no concious control over it. They need help.

The upside is, as long as we can keep these guys away from the psychological treatment they so desperately need, they will keep producing amazingly unique dishes. Feel free to ask if they have anything in the back that is not on the menu, often they will. If they do, order it no matter how absurd it sounds. Trust me on this.

-N. David Owens,
President, D.R. Events.