The Maine Sunday Telegram has reviewed the Portland location of Elsmere.
While the menu is letter-for-letter the same at both restaurants, and although several dishes and two of the sauces remain too sweet, the food is a bit better on the north side of the bridge. An extra few square feet of cooking space on Elsmere’s new, as-yet-unnamed, custom-built smoker gives its BBQ meats a little more depth and a lot more smoke. Stick to juicy and fall-apart-tender pulled pork, barbecued chicken thighs and burnt-end chili ladled over a mound of always-crispy tortilla chips as part of the chili nachos appetizer. When you’ve dug yourself out from under all the meat, order a house-made brownie with ice cream and a snow drift of whipped cream. You won’t regret it.
