The team at Eat Drink Lucky has assembled a list of 70+ “Must Eat” dishes at Portland area restaurants.
The list includes options like the Soup Dumplings at Empire, Ox Tail Cheese Fries at Yardie Ting, and Loaded Biscuit at Tandem. See the full list on the EDL website.
The Maine Sunday Telegram has published a 4 star review of A&C Soda Shop.
Boozy milkshakes and floats lend the menu an adult appeal (although all of the ice cream-based treats can also be ordered without alcohol). So do the salads – a Delicata squash version through the cold months, and now that the weather has turned, an oozy, creamy burrata version with a superb charred-lemon vinaigrette. But here, just as at co-owner Joe Fournier’s other A&C (the grocery that closed in 2021), it’s all about sandwiches.
The June/July issue of Bon Appetit includes an article about lobster rolls in the Portland area.
It doesn’t get more Maine than a lobster roll. And Portland, a maritime hub and center of the state’s dining scene, is where you’ll find the highest concentration of excellence. Whether you grab-and-go from a no-frills food truck or sit down at a fancy restaurant on the waterfront, enjoying a lobster roll (or two while you’re here is a must-have experience.
The article features the lobster rolls or roll-adjacent dishes at High Roller, Two Lights, Twelve, J’s Oyster, Eventide, Bite Into Maine, Regards and SoPo Seafood.
The article isn’t available on their website yet.
The Infatuation has updated their Portland eating guide originally posted to the site last year. The current edition includes entries for Ocotillo, Cantina Calafia, and Oun Lido’s all of which have opened since last year’s version of the list was published.
Today’s Maine Sunday Telegram includes a review of Thai Tree.
Cocktails like the bourbon-and-galangal Vogue and Thai-tea-based Open Your Heart are nods to the iconic pop star (as are all the boozy drinks on the cocktail menu). But you don’t need to be a Madonna fan to eat here. The food menu features some impressive cooking, most of which is prepared from scratch, like fragrant, well-spiced red curries; pad kee mao with wide, supple rice noodles, homemade brown sauce and torn holy basil; and delightful pandan-infused mango sticky rice.
The Boston Globe has published an article about Biddeford.
We tend to like Biddeford, Maine, more for what it’s not than what it is. The former mill town, along the Saco River, is not glossy, overly refined, touristy, or crowded. It doesn’t shout its charms.
But look close enough and you’ll discover a buzzing energy, a town that welcomes new ideas, and a community dependent on collaboration. Biddeford has been quietly, slowly rising from its ashes (many downtown buildings stood derelict and shuttered for years), emerging as an under-the-radar hot spot for makers, artists, chefs, and entrepreneurs. The result is a destination worth checking out.
The article mentions Magnus on Water, Palace Diner, Lorne, Fish and Whistle, Dizzy Bird, The Hamburger Stand, Time and Tide, Elements, Nibblesford, Banded Brewing, Sacred Profane, Lucky Pigeon Brewing, and Round Turn.
Today’s Maine Sunday Telegram includes a review of Rise Pizza & Pub in Cumberland.
…Served in a light, open space painted in vibrant yellows and oranges, chef/owner Rocco Marzilli’s pizzas run the gamut from traditional Italian-American pies to oddball options like Mexican street corn (a decent pie) or Buffalo chicken (a spicy, well-balanced riff on hot wings in pizza form). Don’t skip the Southwestern-style salmon cakes or the homemade s’mores ice cream sundae…
Conde Nast Traveler has published their take on the 15 Best Restaurants in Portland.
If you ever hear anyone wonder why teensy Portland, Maine’s restaurants have such an outsized reputation in the food world, remember two things: First, those people clearly haven’t eaten here yet; and second, the answer lies in a philosophy ingrained in Maine itself…
Today’s Maine Sunday Telegram includes a review of The Salt Yard at the Canopy Portland Waterfront Hotel,
…It has done so partly through decor that incorporates work from local artisans, as well as through Maine-themed food and beverage options at its ground-floor restaurant, Salt Yard Bar & Café – a restaurant without a dining room. The lack of a dedicated evening dining space is not a liability when you’re able to sip bar ambassador Katrin Miller’s inventive, generally well-composed cocktails. Her Moxie Old Fashioned is a knockout and works well as a pairing for a bowl of poutine-like Korean Beef Fries made with Maine potatoes, or a delightfully messy Salt Yard Burger made with Pineland Farms beef.
The paper also shares the history and impact of the Good Day Market on the vegetarian food scene in Portland back in the late 20th Century.
A landmark vegetarian business called the Good Day Market that opened in Portland in 1970 would go on to cultivate at least five memorable vegetarian establishments and continues to flavor the city’s food scene today.
Today’s Maine Sunday Telegram includes a 4 star review of Paella Seafood.
His Valencian-style, traditional paella is smokey (even without chorizo), with patches of crusty soccarat rice on the bottom and precision-cooked proteins (chicken, shrimp, calamari, mussels) that highlight why this deserves to be the restaurant’s eponymous dish. Other standouts include dill-flecked seafood soup; a sandwich of fried pollock nestled into a home-baked roll; and turmeric-tinted, deep-fried whole belly clams served scattered with almost translucent discs of thin-sliced jalapeno peppers. Paella Seafood might be under the radar for the moment, but it won’t be for long.
Today’s paper also includes an article on how distilled spirits prices are set in Maine and on the variety of taco options available in the Portland area.