Category: Reviews

The Porthole received 3½ stars from the review in today’s Maine Sunday Telegram.

Check out casual Porthole for fresh seafood that comes from the market right on the wharf, as well as soups, salads, grilled sandwiches and other land-based items, including flatiron steak or poutine with hand-cut fries. All this is served in a no-frills atmosphere — a working wharf in downtown Portland. The food is very good, the experience fun and the prices not too heavy on the wallet. Breakfast is popular here, too.

The Golden Dish has published a review of Spread.

But there’s more to this place than a stiff drink. Spread is a contender for some serious dining. Portland is not in short supply of these stylish new-American dining establishments, which can tend to mirror each other. Spread makes its mark by draping the flavors of fusion fare over a home-grown culinary vernacular.

The team over at Burger Meister Meister has just posted a passel of new burger reviews for Becky’s, El Rayo Cantina, Miss Portland Diner, Rivalries, Rosie’s , Ruski’s and Sonny’s. For most restaurants their reviews have a wide variety of opinion but Sonny’s was an exception. Here’s an excerpt from their review of Sonny’s burger.

I was pleasantly surprised by this burger.  It had a lot going on!  The best part was the roasted poblano pepper on top.  It was smoky and just a little spicy – a really nice, unusual touch.  I don’t really remember what else was on the burger, because everything was outshined by that pepper.  I think there were some messy sauces, and some yummy cheeses, wait, there was definitely a burger patty… yeah.  It was worth eating, it would even be worth wearing a cute outfit for. 

How many hours would I work for this burger?  I’m just going to ask this burger to marry me.  That way, it will be at my house waiting for me everyday.

Burger Meister Meister is a collaboration among a set of friends who have as a goal to eat a burger from a different venue each week. They’re now up to week 44 and still going strong.

Spread has received 4 stars from a review in today’s Maine Sunday Telegram.

Those gaffes noted and accounted for, Spread is still a “wow.” And if Spread is a “wow” now, I anticipate a “double wow” once the restaurant sorts out its growing pains. Spread brings urban chic to Portland, along with an excuse to step outside my typical clothes closet. While certainly not Hollywood’s Rainbow Room in its heyday, I did see two local celebrities in the course of the night.

Look sharp, sample the colorful cocktail menu, and prepare to enjoy an evening of inventive and eclectic dining like well-dressed grown-ups.

 

The Golden Dish has published a review of Carmen at the Danforth.

We started off by sharing the bacalao fritters, a soulful dish of salt cod redolent of the kitchen’s assertive style. This was followed by a trio of appetizers that included manchego fritters, plantains topped with smoked salmon, Berkshire pork bites and monkfish croquettes—each one superbly invigorating.

NYC food blog Never Ending Hunger was recently in Maine sampling lobster rolls up and down the coast including stops at The Lobster Shack and Bite into Maine.

So where does that leave us… where we knew we’d be after eating at Bite into Maine. Far and away the best lobster roll we had eaten. Bite into Maine not only met or surpassed all of the main criteria for a great lobster roll, they then tossed in a bit of creativity… creativity that worked. I was not going to bring up price either, but at $13.50 they were the best and cheapest (I guess the rents cheap) but they were so good I would pay double. Kudo’s to Sarah and Karl Sutton who moved from the mid-west to serve up what many locals are calling hands down the best lobster rolls in Maine. I am planning to go back soon and have the Chipotle and Wasabi, they say they’ll have them waiting for me.

For recommendations on where to pick up a lobster roll here in the Portland area, check out this article on Serious Eats penned by Malcolm Bedell, co-author of the popular Maine-based food blog From Away.

For a sandwich that seems so basic, individual preferences seems to be a major factor in what defines a “real” Maine lobster roll. Most agree on the basics: a New England split-top bun, griddled in butter until golden brown, then stuffed to overflowing with succulent, sweet, freshly-caught Maine lobster. After that, things get a little trickier.

The Press Herald has published a review of The Works Bakery Cafe.

Thanks, Works, for having consistently good food and drinks, for having staff who make me laugh, and more often than not, for playing decent music. Should you need to show you really, truly care about me, you’d bring back the banana walnut bagel. I’ll be waiting.

Also in today’s paper, the latest installment of What Ales You is an article about Bunker Brewing.

Jay Villani, owner of Local 188 and Sonny’s restaurants in Portland, and his baker, Chresten Sorenson, started Bunker Brewing with the idea of creating great beers with only the traditional ingredients: “malt, water, yeast, time, temperature and passion,” to quote Villani when I talked to him at the Bear.

The Portland Phoenix has published a review of El Rayo Cantina.

The menu offers a mix of smallish snacks, good for a tapas-like approach to dining, intriguing salads, and more substantial entrées. The crab-coconut salad — with the crabmeat stacked over a layer of diced avocado — was fresh and light. It was seasoned with restraint so you could appreciate the natural sweetness of the ingredients. Delicate crisps made from masa corn added some welcome crunch and saltiness. A portobello taco managed to extract the earthiness from this mild mushroom. It was topped with an unusual and very pleasant version of rajas, made (it seemed) from yellow pepper. Fresh corn added some sweetness and crunch. The tamale is a bit unusual — the corn meal shell is relatively thin and light, while the plantain inside overwhelms some bites with sweet — somewhat obscuring the chorizo and goat cheese.

For this months collaborative food blogging project the group is once again collaborating with our good friends at Rabelais Books to do a Summer series of book reviews. Having read the groups reviews I think the book that most appeals to my reading interests in Texas Eats although that might just because it makes reference to The Federal Writers Project in the Introduction.

Edible Obsessions – Texas Eats by Robb Walsh

He starts in East Texas and the Gulf with delicious seafood recipes and traipses across the state and ends with a nod to the diverse contributions from Thai, Vietnamese and Indian cultures to the Texas food scene. He contributes even more space to the influence of Czech and German immigrants of Central Texas. Every chapter is dotted with anecdotes and first hand stories about the dishes, some by the people who created them.… read the full article

From Away – Street Food by Susan Feniger

Susan Feniger is joie de vive personified. She’s a cook who seeks to introduce her audience to new worlds through food. She’s been doing this with her West Coast restaurants for decades, and with this title, cements her place in the cookbook author pantheon. It’s infectious, her love of food and life and humanity. These “irresistably crispy, creamy, crunch, spicy, sticky, sweet recipes” are bound to become part of my repertoire. I can’t wait to make my way through Street Food one page at a time.… read the full article

The Blueberry Files – Apron Anxiety by Alyssa Shelasky

Apron Anxiety features the slightly troubled times in a young, upper-middle class, white woman’s life, the most challenging being her existential strife over love and work. OK, so not every memoir has to be about war, famine, or poverty, but after a while, the author’s complaints become a little grating. … read the full article

Vrai-lean-uh – People’s Pops by Jordi, Carrell and Horowitz

There’s a fair argument to be made that popsicles don’t require a cookbook so much as a popsicle mold, a working freezer, and a low-to-moderate spirit of experimentation. It also has to be said that I am much less likely to give a cookbook the benefit of the doubt when they have the phrase “brooklyn’s coolest pop shop” on the cover. But I do love popsicles, and summer is approaching.… read the full article