Pazzo Ristorante - Welcome!
This is the restaurant in Portland where Jill and I had our carb loading dinner on the night before the race. Now I had been here before, in fact it was in 2001, when Laurae and I had come for the marathon, so I already had an idea of what the menu consisted of.

We decided to go to dinner about 5:30, hoping to beat the crowds. Wrong! When we arrived we were told that there was a 3 hour wait! But...there was immediate seating in the bar area. We opted for that and I scanned the bar looking for a small table for two. Not one was vacant and so it was up to the bar itself, not my favorite place to be. The bartender was a most gracious host though and quickly made us feel right at home within the confines of his domain. Place settings arrived and bread was served while we looked at the menu. (It's a very impressive menu and worth downloading the .pdf file from this site to read it.) I chose a chickpea pasta with lamb ragu and mint, while Jill chose a black and white ravioli with salmon, spinach and lemon sauce. The dishes arrived in short order and we tasted. Good. I also sampled the ravioli and wished I had made the same choice; it was excellent. The pasta with lamb was good, but it didn't have that special flair that the salmon imparted to a pasta dish.

Since we were in "race mode", we didn't order anything else, just the pasta, but I remember having a more complete dinner in 2001 and it was delicious...I'm sure it would have been again. So if you're ever in Portland, try this restaurant for the food, the service and the ambiance. Moderately priced as well! I would give it 4 "Raviolis".