Lovely Hula Hands

CLOSED. Lovely’s Fifty Fifty is now open next door. They’ll honor Lovely Hula Hands gift certificates through 6÷1÷10.

Just found out this place was closing.
This is good food, excellent atmosphere, VERY EXPENSIVE. As in, too-​expensive-​even-​for-​a-​fancy-​date expensive. There are restaurants that have higher prices, but they also deliver a more ‘luxurious’ experience. When we first went here, I was hoping for a laid back, comfortable experience with great food. I think this could be delivered for half of what they are charging. I understand good food, cooking, and service are not cheap, but there needs to be some level of balance.
So, hopefully they will make their prices more affordable in their new establishment. Then, maybe I could eat there more than once.

I just can’t help it. That name Hula Hands reminds me of Major «Hot Lips» Houlihan from TV show M*A*S*H.
Anyways, Hula Hands is pretty good. At least the food, which is very well-​crafted. My favorite was the roasted eggplant soup with fried Italian peppers and olive oil. Creamy, delicious and wonderfully presented.
I was with a group of eight at a going away dinner for JP (he is going to Afghanistan for a year). We were seated downstairs at the big table by the window. We wondered if the table’s distressed look was intentional or was just a funky old table they found at St. Vincent de Paul.
I liked that the menu was broad and had dishes represented by the following: vegetarian, seafood, chicken, beef, pork and hamburger. Half my group went with burgers. I was surprised! But to be honest, the hamburger eaters weren’t thrilled with the rest of the menu options.
I picked the chicken as my entrée. The well-​prepared chicken came breaded and as a filet. I tried roasted fennel for the first time. I love this plant! I thought it was going to taste like licorice, but it didn’t. Instead it had this robust (a bit aromatic) flavor that was perfect. And I loved the buttermilk polenta too.
JP had the (steak) loin which he enjoyed. I thought it was good too.
I don’t know if Lovely Hula Hands was short-​staffed, but we received mediocre service. I gotta dock a star or two for that., though I might come back later and raise my review to four stars.
Even though we didn’t have dessert it was 2.5 hours from when we entered to when we paid and exited. Speaking of dessert, we were not even offered dessert by the waitress. That might have been because they were eager to seat another group. We saw a couple people hovering nearby with wrapped gifts that swooped in on the table before we had even left.

Stellar, stellar kitchen … everything my table had was lovely, a excellent heirloom tomato salad featuring a green tomato I was unfamiliar with, the risotto was lovely, lovely fish, even a spectacular burger, which is harder to do than it seems.
Service could have been a smidge better for the price, however– they were not ridiculously busy, and we could have used a bit more attentiveness … I’m also sad because I asked the server about the tomato, and she said she’d find the name of the varietal for me, and that didn’t happen.

Lots of reviews so I won’t go on too long.
This is a lovely albeit very small restaurant. The atmosphere is laid back but the food matches that of much pricier restaurants. Our server was lots of fun but a bit stretched. We didn’t mind the wait because the cocktails are delish– not too sweet and the foccacia bread melts in your mouth.
I had the halibut with fresh corn, cippolini onions, and baby carrots and was delighted. The fish was cooked perfectly and although the veggies seemed simply to have been sauteed they tasted as if they were über vegetables. Better than fresh– is that possible?
For dessert we had the blackberry ice cream pavlova and it too satisifed. For local fresh delicous meals at a reasonable price we will be back. Only downside? They don’t take reservations.

I’ve gone to both the old and new location; and consistently they deliver. I don’t care how many different friends I take with me, they all love it and ask why I didn’t share with them sooner.
The food is exquisite and service staff is very attentive.
Also, the wine menu is full of great selection, everything goes well with any dish you select.
If I was rich, I eat here every night. Yes, it’s that superb. Great five star place without having to travel miles from the city to fine it — YEAH!

Notes from a visit in March 2009
Atmosphere and Service
I love the vibe I got when I first entered and the upstairs décor. It’s romantic, whimsical, and cozy (not cluttered and overly crowded).
The hostess and our server were both friendly and attentive.
Drinks
Larger cocktail menu then food menu. Got to love that! I ordered the Talulah Bathwater. Pleasantly surprised when my cocktail impresed me with its smell even before I tasted it. I wish my drink was colder or stayed colder longer. I guess I could have downed it quicker but not cool to chug cocktails. I have no problems recommending this drink.
Food
Again, I loved the smells. They really nailed down that sense for me.
The bruschetta starter special was amazing. It had just the right amount of sweet, salt, texture and crunch. That dish actually changed my food mood. I ended up not ordering what I originally thought I was going to try. Instead, I built my menu around this app.
The salad with pear and goat cheese. When I ordered it I thought it might be a little rich, esp. paired with my cocktail and right after the bruschetta but it was surprising light but still very flavorful. The pears were perfect, not too much goat cheese. Greens perfectly dressed.
Very intriguing fennel, cauliflower and Meyer lemon starter. I read the item on the menu but I was still surprised by the final product. Unexpected flavor pairings. Would have like some more seasoning to balance the salt, or maybe just lest salt.
Pan-​fried squid. I was a little disappointed that the squid did not have a light crust of something but it was still very tasty. Again, I thought it needed more seasoning to balance the salty taste.
Desert was the honey lavender crème brulee. Again with the yummy smells. Completely satisfying dessert. Just the right size for two people.
Nicely priced menu for the quality of food you get.
The chef left the following month but I still have high hopes for this place based on everything else it has going for it. I hope to return soon.

Without question, the very best meal (other than home made) I have had in Portland. ABSOLUTELY! The room is painted a shade of rose that makes everyone look young, rosy, & blissful — how can you beat that?! The servers are friendly, not terribly effiecient, but they are so nice, who cares if things are a bit on the relaxed side? They are open on Sunday nights… need I say more?!
Our harrowing health care scare week (can you say that a few times?) culminated in The Big Man’s & my official wedding anniversay. Despite not receiving health results from various poking & prodding tests, we opted to celebrate anyway! That’s why we came here, and I am just anxiously awaiting my next trip up to N. Mississippi!
We both had cocktails, tho’ I stuck with my Manhattans & Stuart had his Rum & Tonic — no fancy pink drinks tonight. Next time… I had an amazing salad of shaved fennel, grapefruit & picholine olives — wow! The flavors are so light, herb-​y, crisp! It has got to be my new favorite appetizer! The Big Man opted for a salad of little gem lettuces with green goddess dressing & thinly sliced breakfast radishes. YUM! I tasted it & maybe I’ll get 2 salads on my forthcoming visit!
Our entrees were SPECTACULAR! Since we acquired our poultry pals at the house, ‘chicken’ has been off the dinner table & out of our oven. Big Man ordered some here which came with ricotta gnocchi & sauteed spinach. He just kept raving about it & cleaned that plate spotlessly! I chose the seared halibut (after checking my list to see if halibut is okay to eat what with the sustainable ocean situation… can’t be too careful…). This amazing fish was cooked perfectly & came on a bed of saffron-​braised leeks with little roasted fingerling potatoes & a caper aioli. If this were to be my last meal on this planet, I would happily go to my final destination, knowing this meal was my little slice of heaven!
The dessert? You ask about our dessert? Well, it WAS our anniversary so, yes! We DID indulge! We shared a magnificent honey lavender crème brûlée. I almost licked the bowl, but stopped myself.
I want to be here all the time. I want to eat their food, bask in the lovely rosy glow, and sip cool beverages. I envision a younger version of myself, pre-​kids & marriage, living above this restaurant. This is the sort of place that makes you feel special, and loved, well-​fed, and beautiful. I cannot rave about it enough. Just go here. Men out there? This is a place you should bookmark for when you have a special someone to take somewhere pretty & special! No disappointments.
And, to top it all off, all this beauty, luscious food, drink, and fabulousness did not cost us an arm & a leg. Total came to $ 82.00 + a nice big tip. It was worth every penny.

I had a mediocre experience at Lovely Hula Hands, but I would definitely go back to try it again a second time with friends. I was disappointed in the lack of vegetarian options. I think they should rename the restaurant to Lovely Meaty Hands. That or offer more vegetarian options. I am not a vegetarian, but I really love vegetables and prefer to order vegetarian when I can.
PROs: The interior of the restaurant is fancy sweet and decorated in a Victorian classy way and is an excellent place to take a date or your family. The service was fairly fast and friendly (and also very fashionable, but that doesn’t really count). The herbs and tomatoes in my dish tasted straight off of the vine. The fish was cooked to perfection. And on a hot day, the Mint Lime Soda tasted perfect (a Shirley Temple Mojito). The dessert servings were huge (maybe suggest sharing). I ordered the chocolate pave cake with espresso crema and salted almonds. Decadent. My mate ordered the summer berry ice-​cream. Pretty good.
CONs: The rosemary focaccia bread tasted mostly good, but was burnt on the bottom. What a bummer! The other negative aspect of this place was that there were so few vegetarian options, and the choices we had were bland and blah. Spaghetti again? Dullsville. And not in the mood for it. Instead, my mate got (and I tried) the padron peppers and cherry tomatoes and romaine with watermelon, feta, pine nuts and mint. I ended up ordering the fish, which tasted good as I said above, but the fingerling potatoes accompanying the fish were not cooked quite enough.
I think this place has a lot of positive aspects to it and maybe I was jaded by the lack of variety in the menu. We also might have enjoyed our meals more with some vino or other libations, but didn’t want to imbibe that night. I give it 3.5 stars, but Unilocal only lets you give 3 or 4. Add more exciting veggie options (or train waitstaff to be more hula hands-​on about crafting an appropriate choice) and I’d probably bump it up to a 4.

Lovely Hula Hands is amazing. The atmosphere is great. The staff are friendly and the food is wonderful. I will definitely be frequenting this place. They have a wide variety of food and I am interested in returning when the menu changes. Also, they have a great drink menu and nice wine list.

Lovely Hula Hands, what the heck happened? I remember you being a 5-​star joint on previous excursions. Most likely because your 90– to 120-​minute wait for a table usually involved me drinking 2.5 cocktails prior to dinner and thinking everything was just FABulous. This time, a slightly more sober me realized you were a smidge off your game:
*$ 3 for bread should buy you more than a two-​inch slice of foccacia. Hungry!
*You were out of the fish! You only have like five entrees on the menu; you should really try to keep these in stock, yeah?
*When your dining companion doesn’t make a dent in her squash appetizer and you ask whether she enjoyed it and she says not really it kind of tasted like squash ice cream and not in a good way and everyone else at the table agrees you should probably just comp that thing or at least bring us a sweetie.
*Five-​star joints don’t run out of paper towels in the ladies’ room.

Oh hell yeah. Super good. Tasty food, service was reasonable and the wines were yummy. Nice décor blah blah.
Weird note, there was an abundance of dudes with super ugly printed shirts in the joint when we were there. Not factored into review.

When I told my dear friend Katie that Sweet Love and I were moving to Portland, she very sneakily contrived to get us a gift certificate from Lovely Hula Hands, a place she had dined on a visit to PDX. Once we got here we couldn’t wait to use the GC– we were really excited for a break from bad takeout, cold cereal, and sitting on the floor.
LHH: So cute, with its retro-​Southern femme décor. So nice, with friendly servers and a great clientele. Such delicious and refreshing cocktails that reminded me of my grandparents’ famous cocktail parties. Such an inventive, fresh menu, including an Avocado, almond, onion and little gem lettuce salad that had me and my sweet love nearly moaning with pleasure.
So why only two stars? Two words: SALT BOMB.
Y’all, I am from the south, where salt is like a food group. My family likes to encrust any food product they can get their hands on in a thick white coating of the stuff. So I am no stranger to salt, okay? I LOVE IT.
But oh my God, the salt content in our entrees was seriously, bizarrely out of control. If there were a Scoville Scale for salt, my sweet love’s duck, spring greens & sweet pea ravioli would have easily ranked in the millions. My pan-​fried halibut, with morels, favas, and pureed potatoes was right off the charts. So much so that I woke up in the middle of the night with my tongue like sandpaper– I desperately guzzled the glass of water on the nightstand, heedless of the fact that my cat has a rotten habit of drinking out of my water glass. This morning, sweet love and I both had a hangover– a SALT hangover.
So I gotta ask, what’s up with the NaCl, Lovely Hula Hands? I really wanted to love this restaurant. I could tell that the ingredients were fresh and carefully prepared, and the kitchen was inspired and capable. If it hadn’t been for the freakish and inexplicable overdose on sodium chloride, it probably would have been a fantastic meal. As it is, though, I think I’ll be looking elsewhere for slightly less… saline…dining options. (Thanks anyway, Katie!)

Okay, I’ll admit it. There was definitely some prefunk before going to Lovely Hula Hands.
That said, this isn’t the ultimate place to pick up some drunk food. It’s classy, yo! None of the menu items have names, but you can order the lamb, the halibut, the steak, or the penne, all of which looked delish.
But, like I told one of my friends, I’m a cheap bitch. That means that I love it when I can get my meal plus drink plus tip for $ 15-​$ 17. Yeah, that’s not gonna happen here. I’m not saying that that’s particularly a bad thing. Especially because everyone was very pleased with their meals. I’m just easily appalled.
I obviously ordered the cheapest thing on the menu (again, me=cheap), the burger. I ordered it well-​done, but they gave it to me medium, but that didn’t really bother me because it was just so delicious. I love food that has a spicy kick, and there was some sort of sweet and spicy chili sauce on the bun that was just divine. The bacon and cheese added even more yummy flavorz. I’d go back for that, even if my cheapity keeps me from getting a cocktail.
Service was a little slow, but I guess good things come to those who wait.

I’ve always loved the name Lovely Hula Hands. To me, it evokes thoughts of warm beaches, little children with ringlet curls and sand between their toes, soft music, ornate antique jewelry, pink powder rooms, and all things dainty, elegant, and graceful.
Pairing a name like Lovely Hula Hands with their beautiful sign (orange and yellow tones with two perfectly manicured hands nearly touching in an elusive, almost flirtatious fashion, against a background of stenciled marigolds and peonies) is as effective in setting a mood for a restaurant, as say, the name «Podnah’s Pit Barbecue.» You know what you’re getting into.
All this said — Lovely Hula Hands did not overly impress nor disappoint. The food was delicious and perfectly proportioned, all of the ingredients were fresh and lightly seasoned. The service was slow, but that is completely expected for a party of five at 8pm on a busy Friday evening. The prices were a bit higher than I was anticipating, (1 bottle of house wine and three entrees ran us $ 100) but again, they were not outlandish, nor unfair.
This will not be on my list of «top date spots» — I would far rather save LHH for an indulgent evening with long lost girlfriends and spend the evening gossiping the night away over a few too many cocktails.

Jane and Sarah have to be the best restaurant owners in Portland. For those of you who read my reviews, you know that I write frequently, and can be a bit difficult on some restaurants; for these two, I have nothing negative to say.
At one point, the Creative Director of my company and I were talking about how the true test of a restaurant is its’ burger. The burger, is what those in the kitchen eat. And the burger, is what those in the kitchen make best and care about most. You might even go so far as to say that when a burger is ordered at a fine-​dining establishment, that it is an unsaid code that the patron «really ‘gets’ the guys back in the kitchen.»
So not to take away from the amazing steak that you can get here, nor the succulent pork chops, nor the delicious pasta… let’s talk burgers.
The burger I ordered was their cheddar and bacon burger, it goes for $ 9.50, which is about half the price of other entrees, but don’t let it fool you; again see my reasoning above. Prior to getting our [went with the fiancé] burgers we each ordered a cocktail. A lemondrop for her, and a Lovely Hoola Hoop for me; both drinks were outstanding.
Promptly afterwards we received the true test though. The burger was on a fresh, and delicious bun with light seasoning. The meat portion was incredibly thick at the center and tapered as it reached the extremity of the bun; a perfect detail for what could be the downfall of many over-​packed gourmet burgers. And to really bring it home the caramelized onions, spicy-​mayo and veggies really brought it home. The cheese consistency melted amazingly with the spicy-​mayo, and finally I have found ‘my’ burger in town. The fries were hand-​cut and a perfect high-​end working-​person side dish.
Hats off to my friends at Lovely Hula Hands for the most unexpected treat. I will add that I have been here a few times, each time was equally stellar and each time I ordered one of the eclectic savories. On this occasion though, to be different than the rest. The burger wins.

Delicious, beautiful food.
I’m suspicious of any review of Lovely Hula Hands that is less than five stars. Four and three-​star reviews referring to things like «tables too close together to hang my coat on the back of the chair» or «too expensive to eat here all the time» are simply absurd.
One reviewer even complained about a long line. Hello, a long line is a GOOD thing. Why would you want to eat in an empty restaurant?
As my dinner companion said, it’s all about the food. All was amazingly tasty: I had the burger with side salad. The burger was prepared medium-​well with chili mayo, caramelized onions, Nueske’s bacon and cheddar. Greens were fresh, plentiful and not over-​dressed.
My companion had the beef short ribs in a reduced beef broth on a bed of carrots, polenta and other yummy stew-​like things. We did not need a knife to cut his meat — they must have simmered it for hours to get it that tender.
The burger and the short ribs were some of the best meat I’ve ever had.
Dessert: A cappuccino and caramel/​amaretto custard with whipped cream. Perfect balance of flavors.
Other than the food: I love the décor. It’s darker, romantic, lush and cozy. Service was excellent. I can’t wait to try a cocktail the next time I’m there.

I gave this one 5 stars for consistency. We go probably once every month or so and I’ve never once been disappointed.
LOVE the padron peppers (when they have ‘em…) – for a real treat, go for the ribeye!
Helpful, very friendly staff and you can tell that obvious care goes into creating a great experience, not just a meal.
GO HERE!

This place has no spam, no plate lunch, no pipikaula, no poi, so forget that right now.
It’s an old song, Lovely Hula Hands, and like an old song, when one steps into this place for the first time it gives a strange sensation of familiarity, a coming home. The lighting and colors comfort and the odd bits of art seem like they were in an uncle’s house when I was a kid.
We brought a friend here for a birthday dinner on a whim and were glad we did. Every thing we ate and drank seemed perfectly balanced in flavor. I had what might be the best-​prepared halibut I have encountered.
For dessert we ordered hot coffee cocktails that were exquisitely spiked and not overwhelmingly sweet. The whole evening was well done and I’d return in a heartbeat.
«Say to me again ‘I love you’, lovely hula hands…»

The restaurant, which seats no more than 25 people, is housed in a pink house off of industrial Mississippi street. The warmly decorated dining room draws on vintage Victorian touches that make your experience here feel like home sweet home.
The night starts with a retro cocktail menu that lets you pretend you’re at a kitschy tiki bar from the 70s. From there, you will be met with generous portions, cuisine with tropical influences, and ingredients locally sourced from organic farmers. Our crab cakes were decadent and served alongside a pickled cabbage relish that did well to balance out the heavier notes in the dish. Our entrees included the ground chuck burger w/​Tilamook cheddar and bacon, as well as the pumpkin rice w/​coconut curry, lime-​chili green beans, fried plantains, and grilled prawns. Both of the dishes were very generously portioned and robustly flavored.
We opted to skip out on desserts since the rest of meal was so filling. That night, they had a molten lava cake, praline crème brûlée, and espresso panna cotta.
The restaurant doesn’t take reservations and the tables filled up around 6:30 on Sunday night. By 7pm, the first seating started to clear out and there were no more people waiting when we left at 7:30.
Lovely Hula Hands is a restaurant that I would frequent time and again for the homemade touches that extend beyond the food to the service and space.