Category: Reviews

From Away has published a review of DiMillo’s.

It’s the sort of place where you share molten chocolate cake. It’s the sort of place you bring your grandma for her 90^th birthday and delight in watching her wear a bib adorned with anthropomorphic shellfish. It’s the sort of place where your waitress forgets to fire your order but you forgive her and she comps you a glass of Chardonnay while career waiters in their black vests swan around mocking her failures. It’s crenolins and mary janes and falling asleep in the back of the station wagon while your parents smoke and argue, The Moody Blues on the radio. DiMillo’s is nostalgia for the future.

From Away has published a review of DiMillo’s.

It’s the sort of place where you share molten chocolate cake. It’s the sort of place you bring your grandma for her 90^th birthday and delight in watching her wear a bib adorned with anthropomorphic shellfish. It’s the sort of place where your waitress forgets to fire your order but you forgive her and she comps you a glass of Chardonnay while career waiters in their black vests swan around mocking her failures. It’s crenolins and mary janes and falling asleep in the back of the station wagon while your parents smoke and argue, The Moody Blues on the radio. DiMillo’s is nostalgia for the future.

From Away has published a review of Hot Suppa.

Open for breakfast and lunch, but not actually “Suppa,” a fact that my 11-year-old nephew finds hilarious and fascinating, you may hit a bit of a wait on the weekends. The tables turn quickly, though, and seeing the smiling, satisfied faces on their way out inspire you to wait just a little longer. Hot Suppa has emerged, in our brief time in Portland, as our favorite place to bring out-of-town guests for a cozy, bleary-eyed breakfast.

Mike’s, the new sandwich shop on Congress Street, has received 4 stars from the Eat & Run review in today’s Press Herald.

Opened this month, Mike’s is a small restaurant. The front room houses a few stools, where you can eat looking at Congress Street out the front window, beverage coolers and the kitchen. The back room has tables for seating. There are band posters and other art work celebrating rock ‘n’ roll decorating the restaurant’s two rooms.

Mike’s, the new sandwich shop on Congress Street, has received 4 stars from the Eat & Run review in today’s Press Herald.

Opened this month, Mike’s is a small restaurant. The front room houses a few stools, where you can eat looking at Congress Street out the front window, beverage coolers and the kitchen. The back room has tables for seating. There are band posters and other art work celebrating rock ‘n’ roll decorating the restaurant’s two rooms.

Edible Obsessions has published a review of Caiola’s.

I am going to start simply by laying out the fact that I am undeniably and absolutely in love with Caiola’s. I am biased from the second my hands hit the keyboard and I am more than ok with that. Truth be told, in spite of what my friend Kate says, they serve up the best brunch in town (or within at least a 50-mile radius) and we haven’t gone to another spot since they started serving it over two years ago.

Edible Obsessions has published a review of Caiola’s.

I am going to start simply by laying out the fact that I am undeniably and absolutely in love with Caiola’s. I am biased from the second my hands hit the keyboard and I am more than ok with that. Truth be told, in spite of what my friend Kate says, they serve up the best brunch in town (or within at least a 50-mile radius) and we haven’t gone to another spot since they started serving it over two years ago.

Portland magazine has published a review of the Chebeague Island Inn.

I chose the duck, a dish I find to be amateurishly prepared in most restaurants. Rowe’s version turned out to be a professional slam dunk. Tender, glossy, and almost silky, the pan-seared Long Island duck breast ($32), ordered medium rare, practically melted in my mouth. The caramel-brown breast rested on a fluffy bed of nutty black rice and rich duck reduction sauce, with bright green spears of al dente asparagus draped over top.

A New York Times travel article plugs several of our city’s restaurants, bars and markets: Bayside Bowl, Caiola’s, El Rayo, Farmer’s Table, Grace, Kamasouptra, Local Sprouts, Maine Mead Works, Novare Res, Peanut Butter and Jelly Time, Rosemont Market, Scratch Baking and Sonny’s.

PORTLAND, Me., is known for three L’s: lobster, lighthouses and L. L. Bean (O.K., make that four L’s). Here’s another: local. In recent years, this city on the coast of Maine has welcomed a wave of locavore restaurants, urban farms and galleries that feature local artists. Abandoned brick warehouses are being repurposed as eco-friendly boutiques. In the main square, a 19th-century building has been refashioned into a farmers’ market. And everywhere you look, this once-sleepy industrial town is showing signs of rejuvenation — usually by keeping things local.

For commentary on the piece from the New York Times read the article that appeared in the Portland Daily Sun.

From Away has published a lunch review of Ohno! Cafe.

The food was good: simple, homey and filling. The shop/restaurant is adorable. The guy who took my order sang to himself while filling a giant grinder with coffee beans, and the grill guy was quiet and pleasantly Mobyish, albeit with fewer qualms about meat. A few other customers rang in an out, I read the Phoenix and assorted flyers posted, and felt at home right away at the Oh No Cafe.