The Room Up Front: Quintessential Munjoy Hill Restaurant Has Not Changed One Bit

February 8, 2022 / / Restaurants, Uncategorized

It took a long time for the The Front Room to get back to normal  after Covid-era dining upheavals.  It’s not yet open 7 days per week but enough of the days (Wednesday to Saturday, dinner only) to make it a steady neighborhood hot spot for dining.  The food is well prepared, peppered with plenty of home-grown ingredients to deem it locally sourced.

The room, however, is not much different.  Tables are not as close together as before but still packed into the room.  I’m not aware that when the restaurant was “closed for renovation” that it included one of those new air filtration systems.  I’d have liked to see tables spaced  farther apart,  and until Portland requires vaccination (x3) cards for entry in all restaurants (and public spaces) as in New York City, I’ll still remain wary of dining-in at places that I’d love to return to.  But any regulations regarding masks, vax cards or otherwise are met by the inane political divide that shrouds our pandemic ideology.  Ultimately the mask rule here and elsewhere  is useless without more stringent controls like proof of vaccination in your back pocket. Today the City Council voted to repeal the mask mandate, another misstep by an out-of-step council.

The bar, the dining room and starter mixed green salad

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The Long Awaited Chick Fil A Is a Colossal Disappointment

January 6, 2022 / / Restaurants

I’d rather have a Wendy’s or Burger King than  the pitiful fried chicken cutlet  from Chick Fil A that was delivered last week while waiting on line for over a half hour.

I had gone to Market Basket for my weekly shopping.  It’s good for grocery items like detergents and household cleaners because  the shelves are fully stocked and the prices are as good as Target or Walmart.

Across the parking lot where this establishment is located, I noticed that the line at Chick Fil A was relatively short–about 50 cars.  I joined the line.  An attendant came to my car and I opened my window.  He asked what I wanted to order.  I said I didn’t know because I had never been to the place and didn’t know the menu, which wasn’t visible being hundreds of feet away.  He looked surprised.  I knew enough to order the basic sandwich.

The line at Chick Fil A

“Anything come with that? I asked.  He responded by asking what I would like.  I said just give me a plain sandwich.  I learned that it comes with pickles and a side sauce. I asked for the honey mustard sauce.   I paid. This was a good system and the attendants did a good job.  When I got to the delivery window I was amazed that they knew my name and my order.  I guess they keep track of the cars as they crawl along until reaching the pickup window.

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Pandemic Resilience: Bisson’s Meat Market Indefatigable

December 24, 2021 / / Discoveries

Another casualty of the world’s Pandemic in Maine was Bisson’s Meat Market, who announced in August that they would be closing after 92 years of serving the Topsham community and beyond. The legendary butcher shop and farm cited these reasons: age and  health of the principles of the farm’s butcher shop and the lack of personnel to serve the throng of shoppers who love this place.  Few of these old-fashioned butcher farm shops still exist today as far-reaching retailers.  Another one, Curtis Meats in Warren, is still running strong.  Though  when I visited last month a sign on the door  said: “Closed due to Covid.”  They reopened soon after, and I was there several weeks ago for my stash of beef, from cows that are pastured on their own fields.

The counter at Bisson’s with an array of meats produced at the farm: butter, cream, milk, beef, bacon, sausage,  ham, salmon pie

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Originally Published in Portland Press Herald around 2010 from past premiere of blog, Food for Thought, C 2002 or Thereabouts

December 16, 2021 / / Restaurants

Originally “Food for Thought” was created as a food diary–a blog with daily entries about my personal focus on local food, farms and restaurants in Portland when the term locavore was new to the lexicon and blogging was a quirky endeavor. It first appeared online at Downeast Magazine in around 2001 and later commissioned by an enterprising editor at the Portland Press Herald where it ran for years until it morphed into the Golden Dish.

For better or worse, the space quickly became focused on restaurant reviews, a shaky moment for some or a stellar  time for others.

It was exciting to eat my way through Portland’s restaurant renaissance.  Suddenly it was no longer just Back Bay Grill and Fore Street as keepers of the flame but rather newcomers like Five Fifty Five, Bandol, Caiola’s, Hugo’s, Cinque Terre, Vignola and Duck Fat joined the group if only to make the old guard strive to be better.

Below are some photos from the past of dining in Portland, most around 2015-2016, as far back as my current Photoshop catalogue goes.

Five-fifty Five back in the day 2015 and much earlier in the early aughts

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The Ultimate Winter Pie: Buttermilk Does It All

December 10, 2021 / / Baking & Desserts, Recipes

For starters, use the  finest, most authentic buttermilk you can find.  This in itself starts a pivotal discussion on what is real buttermilk?  The best we have in Maine, if not in most of the country, is Kate’s Buttermilk made in Arundel,  Maine, our backyard producer of fine butter products like its buttermilk and butter. In fact, the renowned producer of heirloom grains, Anson Mills, in South Carolina instructs in their recipes for cornbread or biscuits to use Kate’s Buttermilk.  That’s quite an endorsement coming from this southern stalwart of southern foodways.

The bible on buttermilk  has unadulterated southern roots. The renown of this food staple can be found in their luscious cakes, pies, biscuits and pastries.   Southern chef Sean Brock in his various cookbooks calls for “full-fat” buttermilk. It’s really an oxymoron because buttermilk is low in fat. But it’s made from the leftovers of churned butter, which is made from whole milk before the milk is separated.  Most commercial producers use skimmed milk to which yogurt or other cultures are added to give tang and heft to the finished milk.  Most of the time grocery store buttermilk is called nonfat. Kate’s is made from fresh cream churned into butter and its milk derivative.

Photo courtesy of High View Farm

Until recently you could find buttermilk at our farmers’ markets, but such dairy farmers who made the stuff found that it was more profitable to use the remains of churned butter for cheese and yoghurt products, which are in high demand. Occasionally, if you ask for it, Swallowtail Farms has real buttermilk made from raw  whole milk. Balfour Farms used to make what they called old-fashioned buttermilk that had the little pieces of butter in it.    High View Farm in Harrison–and at the Bridgton Farmer’s Market–which in my opinion made the richest, raw  butter from their herd of guernsey cows also produced old-fashioned buttermilk that had little chards of the leftover butter from the solids to make butter from raw milk.  Different from the cultured variety, which is thickened with cultures, this was thinner but very tangy and sweet, an irresistible yin-yang combination of flavors.  Real Umami, if you will.  They rarely make it anymore except by special request. Again, there are more profitable uses for the churned butter byproduct. Even their butter is in low supply since they use it for other dairy products.

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Apple Pandowdy: An Easy Addition to Your Apple Pie Repertoire For Thanksgiving

November 23, 2021 / / Baking & Desserts, Recipes

The big difference between a pandowdy and traditional apple pie is that it uses only a top crust.  Use any style crust that you like though I think an all-butter flaky crust works best.

You slice up your apples in the traditional way but the pie is topped with the rolled out dough cut into squares put over the apples in a triangle pattern so it looks sort of haphazard.  But it’s anything but. Make sure there is a bit of space between the pie squares so as to allow the juices to bubble up freely over the crust.  In some versions of pandowdy you gently push down the pastry into the filling halfway through the baking time so that the juices come about one-quarter of the way over the pastry.  Sometimes I do this and other times I just leave it as it is, pushing the pastry dough just a touch when you pull the pie out of the oven.  Experiment and see which way you like since I think  you’ll make this over and over again.

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Sweet Potato Pie Is the Best Alternative to Pumpkin

November 20, 2021 / / Baking & Desserts, Recipes

Though I featured this pie last year, I think it’s worth repeating as the main pie for your Thanksgiving desserts. Sweet potato pie  puts the standard pumpkin pie in its place.    I admit I’m not a pumpkin pie fan.  I like it but it has never sent me wild.

On Thanksgiving pasts I’ve always prepared at least three pies plus one cake for the dessert table at Thanksgiving: Apple, Pumpkin and Pecan  sometimes adding lemon meringue for “lightness .” For the cake, something  like a towering yellow layer cake (at least two layers)  topped with a very rich ganache.

But ever since I discovered  a recipe for sweet potato pie in a 2018 issue of Garden and Gun Magazine by  Birmingham, Alabama pastry chef Dolester Miles, I’ve been hooked ever since. The secret to success–flavor and texture–is to bake the sweet potatoes until soft and oozing slightly and when cool slip of the skins .  The flesh is put into a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat until very smooth.  In Dolester’s recipe she says to beat until there are no more strings.  I didn’t have that issue and the puree comes out perfectly with regular beating.

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Cong Tu Bot 2 Bad

November 1, 2021 / / Restaurants

I used to like Cong Tu Bot pre pandemic before the Big Renovation. Now with its only daytime hours I’m not necessarily in the mood for spicy Thai food at breakfast or lunch. One of a few dishes available since everything else was sold out at 11:45AM, I waited some 30 minutes for my single dish of cold chicken.  (How long does it take to cook cold chicken?) But what really turned me off is how the restaurant operates. Staff is abrupt. And god forbid if you walk in not wearing a mask (75% of Portlanders are fully vaxxed and if you’re old enough, boostered too) you’re figuratively slapped across the face like you’ve committed some venal act. A simple request to don a mask would have been more appropriate rather than barking an order.   Plus the actual dining (outside only) is very uncomfortable with only a few tables and a few lean-against dining shelves. Twenty dollars for a cereal-bowl size of food ( it was delicious, however) seemed excessive. Thankfully the free ice water from a self serve cooler inside (mask required) was free and very cold.

Cold chicken

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Dining Out: Wayside Tavern Has a Few Great Dishes

September 29, 2021 / / Restaurants

As much as I long for New York bagels and pizza, the same can be said for Portland’s pre-pandemic restaurant scene.  Sure we were once considered the restaurant city of the year (2018) when Bon Appetite’s bestowal proclaimed us as the best small town/city for dining in the nation. Yet post pandemic it’s a mixed bag of regrettable losses (Drifter’s Wife, Piccolo, et al) tempered by merely a few denizens of the exotic lacquered worlds of food and dining.  Some of the new ones are not up to snuff and others go relatively unnoticed  for a variety of reasons (Knotted Apron and Broken Arrow are examples).  My advice: If you’re planning on opening a restaurant check all the boxes before asking diners to spend $100 for a mediocre meal.  Of course we want to support the local economy, and perhaps no other industry has had a tougher time than restaurants.  But, hey,  if you’re offering more than diner food (which I love), it behooves chefs to do it extremely well.  That goes for the dining space environment, too.  The space has to be Covid preventive (spacing and masks and proof of vaccination ) and beyond all comfortable and pleasing to the eye.

Basically, Portland dining is not what is was  when it offered so much variety and quality to choose from.  When I go out to eat it’s to the same old places because few others beckon as though the proverbial  come-hither finger is limp.  All understandable from closures, limited indoor seating and hard to get reservations.   If it weren’t for outdoor dining options, I’d be sitting at home tinkering with the next chicken thigh recipe.  And while take-out is the live-saver for restaurants, tepid take-home food is never as good when it lands on your kitchen counter.

Perhaps it’s my limited time dining out these days: My discretionary income isn’t what it once, and I limit myself to dining establishments in which I feel comfortable.  That’s defined by good spacing between tables or good opportunities for outdoor dining and good air filtration systems inside, that sort of thing. The places that I miss the most regardless of pandemic losses,  are Five Fifty-Five in its heyday or Caiola’s for its irreverence and delicious food. That and the ability to sit at the bar for dinner –at many places–was always a treat and a preference. With Chaval the replacement mainstay in the West End and a treat to go to, its indoor dining options are still limited with mostly the patio (the prettiest in town) and sidewalk dining on the ticket.  Their bar was the best one in town besides Fore Street.

As for post Pandemic dining, are we really “post?”  See this remembrance.

The bar flanked by dining room

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Evo X Food Truck, Marina Bar–A Story of Portland Zoning MIshegoss and Its Future at Stake

September 19, 2021 / / Discoveries, Restaurants, Travel

I went there this past Friday because I read a Facebook post that this was going to be its last weekend.  It has been one of my favorite places in Portland to enjoy not only great food-truck fare (courtesy of star chef Matt Ginn of EVO fame) but the view had been fantastic last year.  I noticed this at my first visit of the season several months ago when the food truck marina was not up to its past scenic glories that it had in its first year. The bar area had been moved down a bit, the dining bar shelf that ran along the water’s edge was gone, and the bar still hadn’t been constructed yet.

The problem was that the city mandated that all structures at the site couldn’t be movable, that they had to be constructed in a less permanent nature and it took a long time to get the city staff to coordinate its rulings because of pandemic absenteeism at City Hall.

Here is my story from last year when the marina bar opened. See link

This was the scene at the newly opened EVO X food truck marina in June of 2020

The marina and its patrons and food from scenes in June of 2020

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