Olypmic Provisions

This place has been getting an incredible amount of press lately, locally and nationally (Forbes magazine recently did a spread featuring “America’s Best New Restaurants” and Olympic made the list). Recently opened in the historic Olympic Mills building in SE, Olympic Provisions is “home to both a European-style restaurant and deli serving lunch and dinner, as well as Oregon’s first USDA certified meat-curing facility.” They are now open M-Sat 11am-10pm.

The Olympic Mills building has been meticulously renovated and has maintained a beautiful open/warehouse design. The restaurant space is beautiful, with exposed concrete walls and wooden furniture. They maximize space by placing small tables in a long row, as well as tables in the entrance, and seats at the counter for people to grab a quicker bite. We must have arrived just in time (1pm) because we only waited 10 minutes, and a line of at least 20 people steadily built up within 15 minutes.

The lunch menu is simple but wonderful, featuring all of their homemade meats (as well as some veggie-friendly options). They also offer some amazing side dishes of vegetables/eggs, which all sounded intriguing.

We chose:
1) Tri-tip steak, bell pepper, gruyère, crimini mushroom, carmelized onion, mayonnaise on baguette. The consensus was that although this was tasty, it was actually a bit bland and could have used an additional kick of flavor.
2) Saucisson sec, mahon cheese, mortadella, iceberg, red onion, pickled peppers, mayonnaise on ciabatta. This was a perfect sandwich…the saucisson sec was sliced thin and was perfectly textured, the mortadella sliced a bit thicker and full of flavor, mahon was folded in between both, and all served on a fresh ciabatta roll – well done.
3) Duvel Beer – A Belguim pale ale that is strong, yet smooth and light enough for lunchtime. Served in a Duvel glass, I highly recommend giving this a try.

Service was knowledgeable but not speedy…our sandwiches took at least 25 minutes to arrive. Also, when we did receive the food, my Uncle’s was served with only lettuce and bread (he ordered the sandwich with just lettuce and tomato, obviously assuming everything else would still be there!). We laughed hard at this one. After receiving a bit of attitude for pointing this out to the person who delivered the food, the error was quickly fixed by our waitress. She felt embarrassed for such a ridiculous mistake, and offered to buy him a drink. He refused, but she did send the cookie plate listed under their pastry section of the lunch menu (a chocolate cookie, a ginger cookie, and a biscotti). None were half bad, and they added a nice finishing touch to the meal.

For lunch Olympic is getting three stars, but I enjoyed it enough to put it on my list for dinner (which is saying a lot). More to come…

*Jayne