The Golden Dish has published a review of Eventide Oyster Co.
For entrees we had the roasted seaweed-wrapped branzino and the grilled Nova Scotia swordfish belly. These were two of the best seafood entrees I’ve had in Portland. Whole fish is a pain to dissect but I lifted the central bone off easily and the fish was incredibly moist. The accompanying wheat berry salad, broccoli rabe and lemon confit added essential elements of flavor.
The Portland Phoenix has published a comparative review of Gorgeous Gelato and Gelato Fiasco.
These life-cycle complexities emerge in the taste and texture of the gelato itself. The essence comes down to this: Gorgeous Gelato offers a creamier, more mouth-coating gelato, while Fiasco offers something slightly denser and more flavor-intense. The reason is simple: Gorgeous uses some cream in its mix, and Fiasco relies on whole milk alone.
The July edition of The Bollard is now out. It includes:
The articles aren’t on The Bollard website yet, but they usually posts them up in the week following print publication. In the meantime you can find free print copies in just about every coffee shop and cafe in Portland.
The Golden Dish has published a review of The Lobster Shack in Cape Elizabeth.
For those of us who live in Greater Portland, Two Lights is like the neighborhood pound for lobster in the rough and all the fixings. It’s like getting away to someplace exotic and remote, yet it’s so accessible, with gorgeous scenery, very decent food, and I hope it stays that way for at least another 50 years.
USA Today has published a review of Nosh.
No matter what you choose you will probably like it because the food at Nosh is creative, carefully prepared and impeccably sourced, presenting a unique take on classic comfort foods in a neighborhood setting with a fun, family-friendly vibe and reasonable prices. Nosh also has an extensive list of craft beers, wines and specialty cocktails. It works equally well for lunch, dinner or late-night party spot, and presents a different side of Maine dining with no lobster whatsoever on the menu.
Malcolm from over at From Away has put together a list of his 10 favorite breakfast sandwiches in Portland for Serious Eats.
You know those bleary mornings after drinking a little too much (OK, a lot too much) when your eyes refuse to focus the next morning? And your skull feels twice as big? Yeah, those are breakfast sandwich mornings.
Sfphotocraft has published a review of Vignola/Cinque Terre.
The anti pasta was good. It had shrimp, mussels, oysters and clams. It was a nice bite of a taste of the taste of Maine, with some interesting sauces to spice up the bites. I was a huge fan of the oysters, they were local and had a nice sweet taste to them. It would be hard to screw up this plate as we were in Maine and seafood is everywhere. My next course was the mushroom pizza. I loved the crisp, thin and crispy, but not overly so. The best part were the mushrooms…
Map & Menu has published an endorsement (with beautiful photos, as usual) of the outdoor seating area at El Rayo.
I’m going to regret doing this, because I already hate waiting for open picnic tables on the gorgeous days, but I strongly recommend that the next time the sun comes out, and you find yourself in Portland, grab a seat, a drink, and a taco, and kick back to enjoy the Maine summer.
The Press Herald has published a bar review of Flask,
I met a friend out for a weekend-welcoming drink at Flask on a recent Friday. For both of us, it was our first time hitting up the lounge near Portland’s West End. Shortly after we walked in, I spotted the lineup of flasks on a ledge near the ceiling. Each one had a little funky flair to it, just like the bar.
and the What Ales You column in today’s paper challenges its readers to reach past their go-to brew for something new this 4th of July.
So, I am going to suggest you try something new — three established craft breweries that have been around for a decade or more, but which have just been introduced to store shelves in Maine. They are Lagunitas, from Petaluma, Calif.; Founders, from Grand Rapids, Mich.; and Green Flash, from San Diego, Calif.
Diningsense has published a review of Boda.
Boda is an example of a restaurant that really benefits from its location in a semicircular restaurant row in the Arts District, and the energy of each restaurant builds off of each other. There is a French restaurant in Hyde Park (Chicago) whose motto is “Hyde Park to Paris and Back” and I think this is the sort of philosophy that characterizes many ethnic restaurants in this country, which market themselves as though they were transporting the diner to a foreign culture. In the case of Thai restaurants, this involves assenting to an Orientalism that makes the restaurant nothing more than a cliché. I appreciate how Boda is able to avoid such artificial exoticism, introducing a new facet of Thai cuisine to Maine while at the same time integrating seamlessly within the geographical setting.