Portobello Grill

My wife and I were looking for a new place to eat. We chose Portobello. What a great choice. The atmosphere and the food were fantastic. Mikey was our server. 5 star service. We will be back.

Admittedly it wasn’t my choice to come here as the lone veg person trying to do low carb in the group, so take my comments with a grain of salt. What Portobello advertised itself as doing it did well — my friends were happy and their dishes looked excellent and innovative. But this is California and there are lots of us veg folks and the few dishes for veg folks were comparatively boring as well as being either high carb pasta or not filling enough salad. At least toss an eggplant parm onto the menu or something…

Decided to frequent this place for my mother in law’s birthday. I have not been here in about 7 years so I didn’t know what to expect. The reservation was for 10 people and they were nice enough to accommodate a large group at the last minute. Everyone loved that it was steak night so of course, we all ordered some form of steak. Even my father in law loved it– and he’s super picky because he’s a cook. The waiter was really nice, kept the bottles of wine we brought chilled on the table and periodically came by to fill our glasses. They even gave a free dessert to the birthday girl.

The portobello mushroom ravioli here was, by far, the worst pasta I’ve been served at a nice restaurant. I’m not incredibly picky, and I love mushrooms, so I was surprised. It was mushy and dripping with some kind of Alfredo death syrup. I’ve had much better at Olive Garden.
Atmosphere was pleasant, but I would not recommend this place.

I had dinner alone at the bar recently and it was pretty good. The bartender, didn’t get her name unfortunately, was very friendly and accommodating and provided great menu advice and service. I had an excellent seafood risotto and with a decent house Chardonnay. I was glad I stopped in.

Went here with a party of seven and from the second we walked in the door the service was amazing! The food was great, the drinks did not disappoint, but above all else was the phenomenal staff who made sure we felt very comfortable and were well taken care. I will absolutely be visiting this place again!

Very disappointed in my meal last night.
Linguine w/​bay shrimp was bland and not enough shrimp to start a basketball game. I counted four shrimp.
I’ve had better meals there. Will probably give them another chance … Or maybe not.

This place has a good start to being a great restaurant, but the execution is all wrong. I had a steak, and the meat was extremely tough, but it was cooked to the correct temp. The vegetables were cooked perfectly. (Warm, but not soggy!), but who comes to a place because the vegetables are the best part of the meal?
They had printer problems (based on the waiter’s word) and our drinks came out after our meal (one of the drinks was just wine) that’s even after we asked twice for the drinks.
My date said her fish was very bland. That’s unfortunate because itallian cooking have some great ways to cook fish, this place must not know the secret.
The waiter was a bit short with talking with him, and not very friendly and we didn’t want to stay for dessert.
We won’t be back.

Our waiter was Ben. My family and I started off with the fried green beans and bruchetta. The fried green beans tasted like I was eating fried batter, no taste at all. The bruchetta was canned tomatoes placed on top of an over crisped piece of bread. Our next course was the kobe burger, sole, and chicken marsala. My brother ordered the kobe burger medium rare, it came out medium well. The burger tasted like something I could pick up from five guys. The sole was extremely fishy and not well presented. Last and least the chicken marsala, when it came out it looked like something pulled out of the microwave. TV dinners have looked better than this ¼ inch piece of sad chicken. This dish came with fingerling potatoes, which were almost hard in the middle (undercooked). And canned green beans with 1 slice of a carrot. I will not be coming back.

Good service from Tony in this smallish restaurant. The place was packed and noisy which, to me, is a good thing as it kinda tells me that people generally like it here. Most of the food was good but there were some inconsistencies which prevented me from giving them 4 stars.
Location — Note that it is not really on Middlefield Road. Rather it faces the small one-​way street parallel to Jefferson. Weird!
Brushchetta — 5 hearty pieces per plate. We liked it. The sliced bread was crisp and held up to the topping. The tomato, basil, etc. topping was very good. However, it might a bit on the garlicky side for some people.
Calamari — Oddly shaped pieces which leads me to think they buy it frozen. Meh…
Steak and Fries — Good sized portion. We had 3 orders on the table. The temperature and tenderness of the meats were inconsistent. The flavors were there but the «chew factor» was a «crap shoot».
Soy Glazed Salmon — Good portion with a teriyaki flavor to it.
Petrale Sole — Good sized portion of fish, though a bit bland.
Apple Tart Tatin — Delicious and very generous.
Chocolate Soufflé — Tiny!

I’m glad to say any problems back in October were ironed out.
The grilled chicken salad was wonderful.
The waiter, Ben was very accommodating to
My special request.
The Thursday fish special was
Awesome. Grilled salmon with mushrooms.
I’m back. Quality wins out every time.
Can’t wait to go back.

SO… I got a groupon «gift card» from here — thinking I could actually get a «gift card» — so I got one for me and one for a friend. Seems the groupon really is just $$ towards a meal! Wish they could better communicate what it is you get…
SO had to use the «gift card» the day I went to redeem it for my friend and LOVED what we got… it was Tues nite — Pasta Night — where they offer up even more Pasta dishes than what’s on their current menu. I LOVED my pappardelle with rib eye steak! They put bits of rib eye steak with the yummy pasta along with fresh tomatoes and peas…
And their Pear salad! SO YUMMY with the goat cheese!
Loved it so much we ended up going back the following week using the «gift card» groupon I had planned to give my friend… sigh — should of left on a high but now disappointed SO MUCH!
Same dish — no flavor — rib eye over cooked… I even told our waiter who just looked at me and walked away… Salad — NO FLAVOR… hardly any goat cheese! What happened? And our waiter — this time an older gentleman vs the young man we had the previous week — icy politeness… not helpful at all! Didn’t even offer to redo the pasta. I only had a few bites. I ended up taking most of it home and then dumping it… :(
Guess I should’ve ended it with the first meal but the point of the groupon is to try it — love it and keep coming back… unfortunately for the poor experience the 2^nd time — not ever going back — there’s definitely better restaurants out there that has better food and service! Sorry — I did give it try…

5 stars for our drinks and our really cool bartender, Irene.
0 stars for everything else. We called the restaurant beforehand to get confirmation that our Groupon would work at the bar. Because of this, we decided to just get drinks. However, not only was our Groupon rejected, but we were VERY rudely told by another man (possibly the owner?) that (1) our Groupon «clearly states that it can only be used for food» and (2) «it’s actually illegal to use Groupon vouchers for alcohol.» Both of those statements are incorrect.
We loved our bartender. Unfortunately, we will not be going back. :(

Decent lunch spot in downtown RWC. It’s very spacious with seating inside and out. I came here for a work lunch with a large group and we were comfortably seated by the entrance. We had a reservation, but I think it would have been fine if we just walked in too.
They have a lunch specials menu for $ 11.95 meals which have pretty awesome deals. I ordered the sole over «sticky rice» which wasn’t very sticky at all. The sole was tasty with a marsala-​like sauce, but the plate was cold so the food did not stay warm for long. Meh. The price is hard to beat though. My coworkers enjoyed their salads so maybe I’ll order one next time.

Great experience at Portobello Tonight! Great indoor and outdoor décor! Reasonable prices, high quality food and great service from Ben!

My wife and I came on a Friday evening around 6:00 beating the movie crowds. We each ordered a cup of clam chowder, the soy glazed salmon for my wife and the seafood linguini for myself. The soup came almost immediately, the bread was warm and our water glasses were kept full. The menu is diverse without being overwhelming. The restaurant is nicely decorated with plenty of outside seating. The food was well prepared. My wife enjoyed her salmon and I my pasta. The prawns in my pasta were cooked perfectly and the portions were generous.
A few minor criticisms which the management might want to pay attention to:
1) The narrow corridor that led to the bathrooms had an entirely different feel than the restaurant itself. It just didn’t’ look real inviting if you know what I mean.
2) The busboy work station was also located in this narrow corridor which didn’t sit well with me because of its exposure to the public walking to and from the restrooms and the fact that it made for a tight squeeze to get through the area.
3) The men’s bathroom, for whatever reason, didn’t smell or look as clean as it should have.
4) Our wait for our entrees was 30 minutes from the time we ordered! No excuse for that since the restaurant was almost empty when we got there. If this is an anomaly, then it would be good PR. to comp a shared dessert.
Our initial motivation to dine here was to take advantage of a soon to be expired Groupon.
We will definitely give Portobello another try as the food was good, and the rest of the service was excellent.

My wife and I were shocked at how bad the service was, and at the kitchen’s poor culinary technique.
We were seated at 835pm and ordered 2 cocktails to start; they did not arrive until 9pm. I ordered a cup of soup to start; it never arrived. Our entrees came out at 925pm, almost an hour after we’d arrived. The restaurant was not busy, just incredibly slow and inattentive service.
The quality of the ingredients was good, and the portions were appropriate. The culinary technique was quite poor. I ordered a scallop risotto, but received pre boiled rice, tossed with cream and cheese. Bacon was more abundant than the scallops. My wife’s fish was bland, lacking salt, and accompanied by the same rice. Other tables were also complaining about the service and food. If this is Portobello’s typical performance, it will not last long. Here on the Peninsula, people expect far better.

This place has great variety of food, nice sea food collection, amazing steak, specially the skirt steak. My friends had pasta, and calamari which was yummy. I give one less star due to the Cobb salad, which was so bland, it was all lettuce basically. Also I don’t know what was going on with the drinks, my friend and I ordered Mojito, one had a lot of alcohol and the other didn’t.
I would definitely go back, but go for sea food and steak.

Loved the skirt steak– beautiful presentation. Wedge salad has walnuts, Stella blue cheese, and tomatoes. Wine served by the glass but also in 250 ml carafe.

I would say the food here is definitely not too spectacular than other restaurants in this line of cuisine or dining. The kobe burger my friend and i agreed was a bit flavorless. Mostly lacking in the beef. And it may have been a bit dry. However, the service was attentive and friendly but i would not come back here. Nothing else on the menu really caught my attention