12 // COASTWEEKEND.COM
Coast Weekend’s local
restaurant review
T. Paul’s Urban Cafe has
funky vibe, familiar flavors
Review and photos by
THE MOUTH OF THE COLUMBIA
MOUTH@COASTWEEKEND.COM
FACEBOOK.COM/MOUTHOFTHECOLUMBIA
T
he decor at T. Paul’s Urban
Cafe is busy, scattershot and
colorful. It reminds me of
the ’90s. The ceiling is a black-
and-white checkerboard. A wall is
painted green. Vintage windowsills
hang beside inspirational slogans,
posters of Marilyn Monroe and
Bob Marley. Big block letters spell
out the word “FOOD.”
The menu, too, is a smorgasbord,
and the plates similarly colorful.
Every dish, it seems, contains
greens, reds, yellows and purples.
Along with color, T. Paul’s is
replete with cheese. It’s all over
— in the salads, on a steak, on and
in pasta, artichoke dip, nachos and
spread over crostini.
A whole section of the menu
is devoted to melting cheese: T.
Paul’s Urban Signature Quesadillas
(generally $10 for a half, $12 for a
whole). There are more than 15 of
them, stuffed with things like cur-
ried or jerk chicken, bay shrimp,
steak and veggies. Gooey and easy,
they do their job. A quesadilla is a
pretty hard thing to screw up.
I had the Dungeness Crab
Quesadilla Fiesta ($20) — a kind
of seafood sampler with Dungeness
crab quesadilla — a cup of clam
chowder, a salad with bay shrimp
plus chips and salsa. The lean,
sweet, salty crab played nice with
the oily, melted cheddar, jack and
feta, with sundried tomato, spinach,
garlic and onion for some freshness.
The chowder — thick, buttery, salty
— was run of the mill. The salad
had shredded cheese, too.
The Santa Barbara Cobb salad
($18), with Gorgonzola, avocado,
T. PAUL’S
URBAN CAFE
Rating:
1119 Commercial St.
Astoria, Ore., 97103
503-338-5133
Hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Monday through Saturday
Price: $-$$ most entrées in
the teens
Service: Personable, atten-
tive, jovial
Vegetarian options:
Plenty, as long as you eat
cheese.
KEY TO STAR RATING SYSTEM
NW Salmon Vera Cruz.
Dungeness Crab Quesadilla Fiesta.
1/4 Pound Flat Iron.
Santa Barbara Cobb Salad.
ALONG WITH COLOR, T. PAUL’S IS REPLETE WITH
CHEESE. IT’S ALL OVER. ... A WHOLE SECTION ON
THE MENU IS DEVOTED TO MELTING CHEESE.
a hardboiled egg and pesto ranch
was a lake of creaminess. Though
it could’ve used a few more apples
and onions for contrast, this dinner
salad was hardly lacking heft — it
had plenty of the good stuff: tender
chicken breast, actual bacon, plus
the aforementioned avocados
and cheese. Oddly enough, what
I could’ve used more of was the
greens.
The 1/4 Pound Flat Iron was a
Poor
Below average
Worth returning
Very good
Excellent, best in region
little chewy, but not in a bad way.
From the menu’s “Lite Side” section,
it came with a grilled mélange of
colorful veg: zucchini, red onions
and bell peppers and an almost-too-
sweet mushroom demi-glaze. (The
Flat Iron’s full-grown sibling, on the
other hand, comes bathed in a mush-
room Creole blue cheese sauce.) All
in all, a pretty square deal for $12.
The toss-it-all-out-there ethic
continued to the NW Salmon Vera
Cruz ($20.50), which included
three clams and three prawns, plus
more of the colorful grilled veggie
mélange and mashed potatoes,
which were dusted with Parmesan
cheese, of course. The slender filet
was cooked medium, a bit long,
and a few bones remained. The
chipotle cream sauce was thin, but
worth sopping up. It was … fine —
about what you’d expect for $20 in
a line cook- rather than chef-driven
kitchen.
Though the brightly colored
dishes at the Urban Cafe draw on
a handful of regional traditions
— New Orleans, Mediterranean,
Northwest — they lean more
toward comfort than eclecticism.
While it might look funky, the
flavors are familiar. CW