Today’s Maine Sunday Telegram includes a review of Wander at Long Woods, and an article about the evolving Saco food scene.
Category: Reviews
Review of Bread & Friends
Today’s Maine Sunday Telegram includes a 4 star review of Bread & Friends.
Standout dishes include executive chef Jeremy Broucek’s wood-grilled Broad Arrow Farm pork chop with miso-like rye cream, pickled mustard seeds and lacto-fermented cherries; and a remarkably meaty, braised sunflower blossom plated up with brothy local cranberry beans and capers. Head baker Tanner Rubin gets a turn in the spotlight, too. His dark-and-crusty mini country loaf with homemade cultured dulse butter is a winner, just like his brunch-meets-dessert riff on custardy, house-baked brioche French toast that arrives sticky with Dunn Family Maple syrup and a scoop of smoked rosemary ice cream. Pricey perhaps, but completely worth it.
NYT 2024 List: The Alna Store
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The New York Times has included The Alna Store in their 2024 restaurant list. The list represents the paper’s “50 favorite places in America right now.”
Over the last 12 months, reporters and editors traveled to nearly every state scouting restaurants for our annual list. This year, it was about spaces as much as places. We ate hyperlocal dishes served out of a trailer in a rural Virginia field, experienced one of America’s most refined seasonal tasting menus in one of San Francisco’s most refined rooms, dined on Creole fare in a strip mall down the road from NASA in Texas and joined a party behind a tattered ranch house in Johns Island, S.C.
With regards to The Alna Store, food reporter and columnist Melissa Clark wrote,
…And in front, an ambitious restaurant serves a thoroughly of-the-moment, local menu that’s full of sophisticated touches without being at all pretentious. The house margarita is made with mezcal; the buttermilk wedge salad is dusted with crispy fried shallots and capers; and the shrimp topping a mound of creamy grits are coated in warm, fragrant spices, then seared until caramelized…
The Alna Store is located in the Midcoast town of Alna. It opened in late December 2022. The Maine Sunday Telegram gave the restaurant a 4½ star rating in a review published last year.
East Bayside Dining Guide
Boston Magazine has published an article about where to eat and drink in East Bayside.
Perhaps you’ve already spent some time exploring the incredible food and drink scene in Portland, Maine. But one area you may have overlooked is East Bayside—an increasingly delectable neighborhood inside the parameters of Congress Street, Washington Avenue, Route 295, and Franklin Arterial that’s home to young families and a vibrant East African community.
The article highlights The Cheese Shop, Forage, Hardshore, Lil Chippy, Magissa, Maine & Loire, Minato, Moonday Coffee, Onggi, Quanto Basta, Ramona’s, Red Sea, Rising Tide, and Root Wild, Sticky Sweet, Terlingua, and The Shop.
Best Banh Mi in America
The Infatuation has included Banh Appetit in their list of the 13 Best Banh Mi Across America.
Banh Appetit is a straightforward and reliable Vietnamese takeout spot in Portland, Maine. But leaving it at that would be like saying Costco’s just a grocery store. The excellent lemongrass beef bánh mì is the type of meal that can turn an awful day around. Stop by on Saturday evenings to check out the Mama Le menu, where you can get a bunch of different vegetarian and vegan dishes like the banh mi chay—a sandwich stuffed with rice powder, glass noodles, sweet chili, and vegan mayo—freshly prepared by the owners’ actual mama.
Maine Pears & Review of Oun Lido’s
Yesterday’s Maine Sunday Telegram included a 4 star review of Oun Lido’s,
With his menu, chef Kim does much the same, borrowing deeply personal food memories and transforming them into sophisticated, yet comforting Cambodian and Cambodian-Chinese dishes. Among the most exciting plates are neorm, a crunchy, herby noodle salad with a bonus egg roll; kathew cha, an umami-bathed, stir-fried noodle dish; and loc lac, a complete meal of rice, sunny-side-up egg, shaved sirloin strips and a chromatic salad of cucumber and heirloom cherry tomatoes.
and a feature article about pears in Maine.
Maine has had a passionate coterie of apple “explorers” for several decades, Bunker foremost among them, who are intent on finding and preserving the state’s heirloom apple trees. Today, Maine’s heirloom pear trees – threatened by age, development, climate change and related pests and disease – are just beginning to get similar attention.
Carey Brothers and Review of Linden+Front
Today’s paper includes a feature about Ryan and Richard Carey, the twin brothers who operate two of the city’s barbecue restaurants,
If you learned that the owner of one of Portland’s most acclaimed barbecue joints has a fraternal twin brother who is the general manager at another highly respected barbecue restaurant in the city, you might assume their relationship would be a little fraught with competitive tension.
The paper also includes a review of Linden + Front, a new restaurant that opened in Bath in February.
Bath’s newest neighborhood restaurant, Linden + Front, bills itself as “a modern table,” a slogan that signals its eclecticism. But really, this new venture by restaurateurs Khristine and Zac Leeman is a bistro through and through, with a menu that seems to revel in classics that are only slightly updated. And that’s not a bad thing.
Bubba’s and a Happy Clam Review
Today’s Maine Sunday Telegram includes a feature article on Bubba’s Sulky Lounge and a review of The Happy Clam in Tenants Harbor.
SBIF Portland Dining Guide
Trent Pheifer author of the blog Store Bought Is Fine has published a dining guide with his 30 favorite restaurants in Portland.
With a population of 68,000, Portland punches well above its weight when it comes to its food scene and the options are constantly expanding. If you’re leaving Portland unsatisfied in the food department, I think you did something wrong. 🙃
Review of Mesa Grande Taqueria
The Maine Sunday Telegram has published a review of Mesa Grande Taqueria.
This 50-ish seat, affordable Mexican spot encourages diners to linger, enticing them with margaritas (stick to the rocks version), desserts like fudgy chocolate flan, and a range of savory dishes that are, unexpectedly, both scratch-made and high-quality. Barbacoa, carnitas and grilled chicken are all prepared with skill. Ask the well-trained staff for suggestions, and they’ll guide you, recommending smoky pulled pork and beef in the soft tacos, and the grilled chicken in the quesadilla.