My husband and I love Oba so planned to celebrate our 9-year anniversary there last night. What a let-down. While our favorite appetizer, the queso fundido, was fabulous as always, my pork mole dish was incredibly bland. Our server never came to ask about how the food was and we had to wave down another server just to get some salt to make my meat edible. My husband's steak dish was the complete opposite - succulent, flavorful and cooked exactly as he ordered. Why the inconsistency? He agreed the pork was awful. It seemed to take forever to get a dessert menu (probably 15 minutes or more), then just as long to get our server to take the dessert order. All in all 3/4 of the food we ordered was up to Oba's usual superb standard, but the remaining 1/4 was so awful it tainted the whole experience. The absent waitstaff is also subpar for Oba. Oba, I hope you pull it together soon. You're one of our favorite restaurants in Portland and we want to come back but to the old Oba, where the whole experience is divine.
more