After a scintillating dinner at Tempo Dulu Saturday night, one of nearly bacchanalian proportions, everywhere else I ate last week was so tame (though pretty good) by comparison. (Shown on the intro page is mixologist’s Trevin Hutchins Wayang Cocktail)
Last night’s options, however, were a mixed bag of where to eat since many favorite places are closed on Sundays, a mistake perhaps if restaurateurs are looking for the big dollars from the brigade of tourists now everywhere in Portland.
I considered going to Sur-Lie, but they close down for Sunday dinner after serving their very popular brunch earlier in the day.
Ebb and Flow, on teeming Commercial Street, is also closed on Sundays and I haven’t been there in a long while. Same for Tiqa. Keeping with the growing Mediterranean theme gaining popularity, I considered stopping at Evo but parking anywhere in the congested Old Port that night was difficult.
Central Provisions, however, was practically heaving with patrons filling every last seat from upstairs to the lower level bar. It’s been a long time since I’ve been and probably will have to wait until the quieter off season.
I haven’t hit it right since my first visit to Terlingua when it opened in June. Recently a dish of smoked tongue stuffed inside a taco shell was totally dry and uninteresting. On prior visits I‘ve had the brisket and pork belly that were very good and when I’m there again I will try the highly touted ribs.
A ride onto the normally busy Middle Street showed a nearly empty Honey Paw, a shuttered Hugo’s but Eventide was bursting at the seams with patrons. The East Ender was also very busy, though I scratched that off my list for now since I’d had a bit of a disappointing dinner there earlier in the week. Duckfat had the usual line-out-the-door crush.
Eventually I wound up at Lolita, and happy to be there. At 8:30 PM it was as crowded as happy hour on the high seas. There was one seat left at the bar and I grabbed it. Sitting on either side of me was a visitor from Virginia who had just dropped off his son to camp and a local bartender who loves the squash tart and has it every time it’s on the menu.
I chose two dishes from the special’s board: crostini with oyster mushrooms and pan-seared salmon, both of which were beautifully prepared.
Other highlights of last week included a great starter plate at Union consisting of chick pea fritters arranged beautifully. On another night after an hour’s drive to Harpswell’s Dolphin Marina, with its beautiful waterfront, setting, we all dug into the usual lobster dinner, which was good enough but not memorable.
And finally you can’t go wrong at Empire Chinese. I took a friend who’d not been and we had dumplings, stir-fried eggplant and Mongolian lamb. It was just right.