The Blue Spoon (Portland, ME)

Located right at the intersection of Congress and Munjoy Sts. in the Munjoy Hill section of Portland, The Blue Spoon is a cute little restaurant that offers a Saturday (but not Sunday) brunch.  This is where we wanted to go the previous time I was in Maine, but it was so packed we ended up at East Ender.  With only about twenty to twenty five seats, it is easy for this place to fill up quickly, and though my meal had some disappointing aspects, I can see why The Blue Spoon is popular. 

My sister and I grabbed a late (around 1:00pm) brunch here after my old favorite, Bintliff's American Cafe, ended up being packed with a significant wait anticipated.  Neither of us wanted to deal with that, so we took a shot at The Blue Spoon again, which was basically empty this time when we arrived, though a few people shuffled in after us.

The coffee we were served was both quite good (not La Fiorentina level, but I would say it was equal to Amherst Coffee).  It was hot but not boiling, and replenished often; a good start for any restaurant serving breakfast or brunch.

I went with the restaurant's take on my personal favorite Eggs Benedict, which was completely not traditional but really interesting.  My sister had the classic two eggs, bacon, home fries and toast, which she was quite pleased with.  The "Benedict" consisted of a soft on the inside, crispy on the outside sweet potato pancake; not quite a latke, it was softer than that and was really more like mashed potatoes in pan seared patty form, though that was definitely not how it was constructed.  This was, without a doubt, the best part of the meal, as it was seasoned perfectly, had just the right balance of textures, and sopped up the yolk from the eggs.  On top of this were a couple thick slices of bacon, which somehow managed to be both crisp to the point of nearly crumbling and also chewy; I am not quite sure how this was achieved, but it was great.  The obligatory poached eggs perched atop the bacon, and were nicely cooked.

There ended the positives, however.  Sauce Hollandaise is a delicate, difficult to make (at least properly) item when you are in a restaurant, as you clearly cannot make it to order, and thus have to make sure it lasts properly.  That said, if your sauce breaks, do not serve it.  I would rather wait for you to make more and/or fix the sauce than get a runny, melted butter looking (and tasting) sauce that does not even resemble what it is intended to be.  The meal was good, but that was in spite of the Hollandaise, and quite frankly, I cannot believe that a restaurant of this quality would let something that clearly wrong go out to the table.  It cannot be that no one noticed; it was the first thing I saw when the plate was put down in front of me, and was completely obvious. 

Service was good; attentive but not annoying, and the waitress was there to refill our coffees and waters before either cup ever went dry.  I do not know if they could keep that up if the place was full, but considering how small it is, it would not surprise me.

So, all in all, how did I feel about this meal?  The best answer I can give is, I don't know.  I liked all but one element of the entire experience, but it was a key to the dish.  In fact, while Eggs Benedict is recreated with all sorts of strange ingredients, two things remain constant; the poached eggs and the Sauce Hollandaise.  Failing on one of those two items is difficult to look past, but the remainder of the meal was so good that I really want to.  I think I would have to try the place again, and probably the same dish again, to really form a solid opinion, but I could neither recommend nor discourage going to The Blue Spoon to anyone based off that meal.

******

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Maine Trip #1

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!  This is my favorite time of year, despite my recently acquired aversion to cold, because I absolutely love Christmas.  I am, without a doubt, the worst Jew ever, but since I grew up celebrating Christmas in Portland, ME with my step-family, I came to love it not as a religious holiday, but instead as a time to get together with family and friends, exchange gifts, tell stories, and of course, eat lots and lots of great food.  This year, in addition to the great food we had at family dinners, I went out and tried a few new places in Portland and the surrounding area.  I also hit up an old favorite, Pai Men Miyake, which has become a requirement for my Portland trips over the last year.

*****

First up was Local 188, a fairly high end restaurant that specializes in fresh, local ingredients.  Now, before I go any further, in the interest of full disclosure my sister and her boyfriend are both managers there, front and back of the house respectively, and this meal was essentially comped.  That said, I did greatly enjoy it, as I had a classic favorite of mine (steak tartare), a classic Maine dish (mussels), and an innovative take on a true Italian classic (gnocchi with lobster).

I started off with a cocktail, the "Bergeron Sidecar," made with house infused vanilla and fig bourbon, Cointreau, and lemon juice.  Ordinarily I am not a big cocktail person, preferring either to drink beer or straight spirits, but at my sister's suggestion I went with this, and it was really tasty.  The bourbon did not overpower me, nor did it entirely mask the other ingredients, though it was definitely the dominant flavor.  I do not know what kind of bourbon they used, but it was at least decent, though I doubt it was tremendously high end.  The lemon juice added a nice citrus note to it, but since I have no clue what Cointreau tastes like on its own, I could not tell you whether it added anything.  It would probably have been a better option as a pre-dinner drink, but it was fine during the meal as well.

Since I had never been to Local 188 before, despite my sister having worked there for quite some time now, I decided to sample a few different dishes, and they were all successful, though one clearly stood out above the rest.  The mussels in red sauce were incredible, perfectly cooked (and cleaned, which even in a restaurant is no small measure of success) and delicious.  They are plump, juicy, slightly briny delights that on their own would have been delicious, but when served in the incredible red sauce were legitimately delectable, one of the best dishes I have ever had in a restaurant.  I have no clue what they put in the sauce other than that it is tomato based, and according to my sister Moroccan inspired, but my lord, it is delicious.  I ended up using the endless supply of bread my sister kept grabbing for us (also really good) to sop up all the sauce, because there was no way I was letting any of it go to waste.  Everything else could have been terrible, and this dish would have made going there worth it.

Next up were the gnocchi, which threw me for a bit of a loop.  I am used to, and partial to, light, pillow-y, but deceptively dense gnocchi, which soak up sauces and provide just a little bit of a bite, that perfect al dente.  These were definitely not that; they were absurdly light on the inside, but because they are pan seared, they have a little bit of crispness to the outside.  They were extremely flavorful, and the lobster cream sauce they are served in is great, with a pretty significant amount of lobster piled on top of the gnocchi.  All in all, I liked this, but it definitely was unlike any gnocchi dish I've ever had, and I think I would have liked it even more if they were not seared.  That said, it is nice to see a restaurant do something a little different, and the sear was perfect on each of them.

The final dish, the steak tartare, was both awesome and disappointing.  The steak itself was perfect, uniformly diced and formed beautifully into a classic disc, with capers and truffle oil mixed in that gave it the perfect saltiness and umami flavor to go with the clearly high quality steak.  My issue, however, was the quail egg on top; rather than serve it traditionally, with a raw egg yolk on top, they fried the whole egg sunny side up; this created a textural and process issue for me, as I neither enjoyed the texture of the fried white or having to cut through it while trying to get a bit of the egg with the steak.  Soft egg on top of malleable steak does not cut easily or cleanly.  Additionally, who is eating steak tartare, but has an issue with raw egg?  I would rather have just had the steak itself and no egg on top, because the steak itself was amazing, but that egg was incredibly disappointing.

Overall, I had a great experience, I really enjoyed my food, and I look forward to going back in the future to try some more things.  The paella gets raves from the variety of people I know who have tried it.

Local 188 is relatively vegetarian and gluten-intolerant friendly, with several items on the menu that are one or both already, and the ability to retrofit some others to meet dietary restrictions.

*****

The heart of the brewery; those tanks are filled with delicious, delicious beer

Saturday, after a delicious lunch at Pai Men, my sister and I took a quick trip up to Freeport, a town best known for the Maine staple L.L. Bean, but also now the home to Maine Beer Company.  While they do not offer a brewery tour, they do have a small tap room that overlooks the heart of the brewery.  They offer eight beers on tap at a time, and sometimes (including when I was there) have beers that are "Pilot" brews, not offered for sale anywhere else.  Offering 5oz and 10oz glasses, or four and eight beer samplers of 5oz pours, you can try an old favorite or some new specialties.  I went for the four beer sampler, trying three new-to-me beers, and of course, my all time favorite, the Lunch.

Clockwise from front righ:  Pilot 5, Lil One, Lunch, Weez

The new beers I tried were Weez (7.2%, American Black Ale), Lil One (9.1%, American Strong Ale), and Pilot 5 (5%, American Lager).  The Weez was dark, heavy and very hoppy, but like all of MBC's beers, that hoppiness did not manifest in much bitterness.  The Lil One was anything but, an absurdly strong, vibrant ale that even in a 5oz glass nearly knocked me on my ass.  I would not want to have more than one of these at a time, but it is very, very good.  The Pilot 5 was a nice, light, hoppy lager, and I hope they end up producing it, because I think it would be a great session beer, in a craft world sometimes too crowded by higher ABV offerings.  Lastly (and I did save it for last, so I could savor it), the Lunch, that perfect, delightful, hoppily bright and effervescent IPA; as much as I love Ballast Point's Sculpin, Dogfish Head's 90 Minute, or any of the other truly great IPAs I have had in my life, none of them quite match up to Lunch.  I keep saying it deserves its own review, and it does, but its so hard to find, and when I do, I end up just drinking it without taking the time to sit down and write a review because it is just so freaking good.

FYI, just down the street a short ways is Maine Distilleries Inc, the producer of Cold River Vodka.

*****

I always try to grab lunch or dinner with one or more of my dad's old friends when I make it up to Maine, people who have been very, very good to me in my life and were dear to him in his, and this trip I was able to make it to brunch with his old friend Doug and his wife Ann, who are some of my favorite people in the world.  We tried initially to go to Flatbread, a small chain restaurant that Doug swears by, but they had actually had a small fire that morning and were not opening up until after I needed to leave town, so we ended up at Ri Ra Irish Pub, another small chain that has ten locations throughout the east, plus a new Las Vegas restaurant.  Somehow I had never been there, despite their proximity to the Casco Bay Lines terminal, but since they are right next to Flatbread as well, we decided to pop in.

They are definitely a bar heavy restaurant, and with a pretty decent drink selection at that.  We were there right around noon, so we ended up, at the suggestion of our waiter, ordering brunch.  I had the Irish Benedict, an interesting play on the traditional dish wherein the English muffin is replaced by potato cakes (essentially home fries mashed together and then pan seared) and the Canadian bacon with a large rasher of regular bacon, with house-made Hollandaise on top.  It was served with very unremarkable home fries and a thick slice of grilled tomato (a concept from the British Isles that really needs to catch on more here).  The food took a long time to come out, but our waiter did come over and apologize for that and offered us some soup, on the house, to make up for it; as it turned out, the food arrived almost immediately after the soup came out, but it was nice of the restaurant (or just him?) to do that, and the soup, a tomato bisque, was pretty decent, though I make it better.  The Benedict was quite tasty, albeit kind of difficult to get all the components into one cohesive bite, but that was not a big deal.  The potato cakes were tasty, crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, just like good home fries would be, and the bacon was cooked just right, as were the poached eggs.  I would definitely have it again, or the Lobster Benedict that Doug ordered.

I firmly believe that the average restaurant customer goes in thinking they care primarily about the food, but in reality, people return for the service.  With that in mind, and having had some great waiters, waitresses and bartenders in my life, I have to say that the waiter at Ri Ra was one of the best.  I initially ordered the Irish Benedict, then immediately changed my mind to the Crab Cakes Benedict, a special for the day, and instead of just letting me get the (slightly) more expensive meal, he informed me that the crab cakes were not something that the restaurant does well, and encouraged me to stick with the Irish version.  Not many waiters would do that, and he saved me (and Doug, who was also going to have them) from a poor experience.  Combined with his general friendliness and professionalism, I was very, very impressed by him; even if the food had been only mediocre, rather than actually pretty tasty, I probably would still have written a positive review just because of his service.

******

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Prune (New York City, NY)

I first heard about Prune via a post on Keith Law's blog The Dish about Gabrielle Hamilton's memoir Blood, Bones & Butter, which he raved about.  His description, and several quotes from the book, made me want to immediately drive down to New York City and go to Prune.  Hamilton's philosophy is simple:  good, unpretentious, fresh food, and this ethos won Hamilton a James Beard Award in 2001 and 2011, as well as multiple additional nominations as Best Chef in New York City.  While getting a reservation for dinner can supposedly be difficult, brunch--served on weekends from 11:00am to 3:00pm--is first come, first served.  Luckily, less than two weeks after reading Keith's post, I was on my way to NYC to see a friend, and she very nicely agreed to accompany me to brunch.

We arrived a little before noon, and were told it would be an hour wait, so we decided to wander around the area a bit, returning after about 35 or 40 minutes, only to find that they had already called for us.  However, we were put right back on the list, and within the next few minutes were being seated at the bar.  The restaurant is tiny, with tables for maybe three dozen people, packed in pretty tightly, plus another ten or so at the small bar, which has bright magenta stools that goes with the rather eclectic look of the whole place.  The menu doesn't look like anything special, with mostly old favorites like the Monte Cristo sandwich, steak and eggs, and even huevos rancheros.  There are also some more creative and non-traditional options, such as spicy stewed chickpeas, egg "en cocotte," coddled egg with chicken, and even spaghetti a la carbonara and a sausage and oysters dish.  The drink menu includes a number of traditional and non-traditional brunch drinks, such as a variety of Bloody Marys, Mimosas, and the bizarre Chicago Matchbox, which includes homemade lemon vodka (I presume that means they take regular vodka and add the lemon flavor in house, rather than actually distilling the vodka), pickled Brussel's sprouts, baby white turnips, caperberries, green beans, and radishes, and is served with a chaser of my personal guilty pleasure beer, Red Stripe.  It sounded interesting, but not quite interesting enough to get one.

I went simple, with the Classic Eggs Benedict, my all time favorite breakfast dish, which was served with "potatoes rosti," which was really just a giant potato latke, albeit a very good one.  My friend


Eggs Benedict, Potatoes Rosti, and Mimosa, with pickled veggies in the background

ordered the Soft Scrambled Eggs, served "on the wet side" according to the menu, with fresh chopped parsley, bacon, potatoes rosti, and a toasted, buttered English muffin.  Since she is gluten intolerant, I was the happy recipient of her English muffin.  We also both ordered Mimosas, because...well, does that really need an explanation?

My Eggs Benedict was perfect; the Canadian bacon was not chewy, a common problem with it, and the eggs were perfectly cooked, spilling the runny yolk all over as soon as I cut into it, giving me something to dip the potatoes and my extra English muffin in, which was exactly what I was hoping for.  The hollandaise was light, but very tasty, and definitely homemade.  The potatoes rosti were crisp on the outside, slightly chewy on the inside, and delicious, though if I had to make a complaint it would be that they were a little under-seasoned; Julie added salt and pepper, but I just used the egg yolk to add flavor.  With a bit more salt, however, it would have been just about perfect, reminding me of eating latkes during Hanukkah as a child.  Julie was also very happy with her food, saying that though the eggs were cooked rather less than she was used to, she really enjoyed them.  The Mimosas were the perfect accompaniment, with good, though slightly pulpy (I hate pulp) orange juice and actually decent champagne.

At just under $47 for our meals, drinks, and a good tip (the bartender was fantastic) this was an exceptionally reasonable meal, especially by New York City standards.  The service was great, the restaurant beautiful, and the food was superb; I cannot recommend it enough.  It is also very vegetarian friendly if that's your thing.

******

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