A dinner at Tabla Bistro on Dec 16, 75% motivated just because their homemade pasta dish of Tajarin is so loved and was accompanied by such enticing pictures by Portland Monthly’s Eat Beat recently. You can order a prix fixe for only $28 that yields your choice of one appetizer, one half order of fresh pasta, and an entree off their main menu.

For us, the starters were beautiful orders of Fall Vegetable Salad with turnip greens mousse, feta, market vegetables, mustard seeds and the Sous Vide Egg with sunchokes, speck, watercress coulis, chanterelle cream. I suppose we could have ordered bread and butter (additional $3) to wipe up the sauce, but we didn’t.

For the fresh pasta course, the half order of Tajarin with truffle butter, parmigiano reggiano. The pasta here are really very delicate and gentle, and should not be missed as part of your meal. For the mains, another half order of pasta, this time Chestnut Cavatelli with braised lava lake lamb, fiore di sardegna pecorino, and the vegetarian Bob’s Red Mill Polenta with maitake mushrooms, brussels, sprouts, salsa verde.

Dessert included Winter Squash Cake with candied walnuts, maple caramel, creme fraiche and either housemade blackberry gelato or salted caramel sorbettto to give us a break from all the richness of their offerings during the meal.