montage

montage is a bustling new orleans inspired bistro that features, among other great comfort dishes: alligator, frogs legs and the best damn mac & cheese you may find on the entire west coast.

bad attitude towards guests. saturday night/sunday morning our party of 6 was looking for food after a night of dancing. we called ahead and were told that montage was seating until 4am. we arrived at 3:25 and were seated by about 3:45. at 3:55, heavy metal music started playing from the speakers over the dining room at an extremely loud volume level. our waiter explained that this was how the kitchen ensured the patrons hurried up with their meals so the restaurant could close. it was so loud that we could not have a conversation and had to sit mute through our meal. it isn't my place to say what the operating hours should be, but if the goal is to close completely by 4, they should have stopped seating well before 3:45. treating paying customers in this manner is inexcusable!
in addition, of the 6 orders that we placed, 3 of them were incorrect. i will never be back and i will make sure to tell everyone i know about what they can expect from this place.

in town for visit. heard great things about place. stopped by sat. march 5. thought i was in restaurant but i guess was in lounge, place wasn't open yet. bartender had attitude!! asked for menu was complete a** h***! pointed down the bar and said there are menu's. don't care how good food is. service sucks!!

not bad but not great. i recently tried out the pesto mac and cheese at montage. it had a good flavor but could have been better. their mac and cheese is not baked which i think makes it not as good as it could be. it has a good flavor but i've had better.

the service was good. i did hate the little tiny water glasses and the lighting was way too low. not a bad place to go w/ friends when you're looking for a cheap meal with fast service. i probably won't go there again however.

i absoluelty love this place. the atmosphere is why you go. and maybe the waiters are freakin busy that's why they don't hover! it's great. people seem to think waiters need to ask you "you all doing alright" every 3 minutes. this place is fun, exciting, and a perfect example of why we live in portland. i love it when the cooks and the waiters are all yelling (who knows what lol) and it just gets everyone just jazzed to be out. i plan on spending my birthday here this year and i know it's going to be amazing.


-----02 mar, 2010-----

you can not find better mac and cheese. old mac is best. and how about hush puppies?!? you won't find better!!!

montage. it's all good here, except the gator can be chewy

what else can you ask for?. one of the quirkiest, funnest, eateries i have ever been to. after the 20 minute wait (we could have waited in the bar had we known there was a bar) we were sat on a long table with strangers, made our order off of xeroxed menus, and then sat back and watched the portland crowd do their thing. it was amazing. such chaos but it all worked out just fine. the food was incredible, the atmoshere was atstonishing. the inside is like nowwhere i have been. but the real thing were the customers and the staff. such energy from both the staff and customers.

montage is known for staying open late. late late. like 4 am, late. it's one of those places that people know about before even visiting portland.

will not go back.. several times throughout the years i've gone to the montage and had ok service, even after saying i'd never go back due to some really poor service. i thought maybe they had improved or something. i was wrong.

after a concert let out on a sunday night, i imagined it would be a good place to grab a bite before heading home. my girlfriend and i were seated in the corner of the dining room and basically abandoned. after 15 minutes of no acknowledgement from the staff, we started to get up to leave. at that point someone explained that the waiter would be right with us. there was literally no excuse for this. it was the least amount of people i'd ever seen there. the staff was not busy. (i had plenty of time to observe) we left and had a delicious whiffie's pie instead.

this instance, as well as an earlier occasion where the staff was just plain rude have made it pretty clear they don't need my business. i will be spreading the word as much as i can, because they obviously don't need yours either.


-----11 dec, 2009-----

good food, crap service. if you can put up with the service, the food is pretty good. try the bobo, hard to not enjoy two kinds of gravy!

fun under the bridge. great place, good service, fantastic mac - especially the pesto. be forewarned however: at dinner they seat you family style and they have a terrible beer list.

underwhelming. i have a creeping suspicion that the "experience" of dining at montage is what people really like about the place. i say this because the food, while not bad, is in no way gettin it done. you cant make red beans (and rice) with texas chili beans! gumbo should have a small layer of rice at the bottom of the bowl, it should not be a bowl of rice with the gumbo serving as a layer of icing on the rice. also, it doesnt require 3/4 of a diced tomato as garnish. it does require some flavor, which, outside a little bit of spiciness, wasnt present. a catfish poboy, traditionally, has a breaded fillet of catfish in it. not breaded little pieces, rolled up to look like popcorn shrimp.
it a charmingly stylish place and the lunch prices were more than reasonable but we probably wont return. why? because i dont care if you can make a swan out of aluminum foil. i care if you can make me feel like what im eating was prepared in the deep south. and on that front they fell way short.
grade: c ( for whatever reason, the place smelled like a dirty bar rag)

cool late night eats. picked up a family late last friday night at pdx and decided to go lbm. being middle-aged folks (plus a teen) we were probably the oldest customers as this is mostly a 20-something hang-out at least later in the evening. we still had to wait a half-hour for space at a communal table but passed the time in their lounge with a drink.
we shared the frog legs appetizer and yes, it does taste somewhat like chicken. it was very good. my entree was the jambalaya with alligator. the dish was prepared well but i found it to be a bit bland for jambalaya. still it tasted good and i would certainly return but try something different as there is much variety at this cajun-style restaurant.
it's very loud and, as mentioned, small parties will share communal tables so if you're not into that, don't go.

weird and wild - run to this place.. you can get a hint of the sensual strange just by walking by the montage. a dizzy interior and nice service - i recommend this place for those who enjoy feasting on the edge. the bathrooms are a lurid green and echo van gogh-
plants, paintings and foil sculptures dance the room. dine and never leave the montage.

great and very unique in a cool way!. we came here tonight and had a wonderful time at this really unique looking place. inside is really nice w a touch of modern and love whoever decorated the place. the waiter and hostess were friendly right when we came in. i ordered the jambalaya w oudion sausage (blaah spelled wrong) plus a corn bread on the side that came w it. dont get me wrong...the food was great but the jambalaya didn't taste as good than the other cajun restaurant i've been around in pdx but it was still good (3 /12 out of 5). anyways and also to drink i ordered a special drink called the rudy fernandez.(5 out of 5). overall the place is wonderful and i would definetly come back. the major weird cool plus is: when you take your food to go. they will wrap it in foil for you and make it into a really cool sculpture to go. my husband's food was wrapped into a scorpion. love the place.

crawfish fritters are to die for. awesome ambiance, killer southern inspired food, great staff. i would definitely be coming back here.