North Star Music Cafe Review

The Maine Switch has reviewed North Star.

Once in a while when a restaurant opens, the stars and the moon align and the crowds descend. Such was the case when Kim Anderson and Anna Maria Tocci opened North Star Music Café two years ago at the base of Munjoy Hill. A packed entertainment schedule, the simply prepared food and the free wi-fi quickly solidified its status as one of the city’s most popular gathering spots and eateries.

Asmara Review

Asmara, the Eritrean restaurant on Oak Street, has received 3½ stars from the Taste & Tell column in today’s Maine Sunday Telegram.

Asmara, an established culinary outpost of Eritrea in Portland, serves dinners with the scents and tastes of eastern Africa. Spicy cayenne, cumin, coriander, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, thyme and cloves imbue meats, greens, dried peas and lentils with an exotic allure. Red cayenne in a paste called berbere livens up lamb, chicken and beef with a trickle of fire.

Barava Review

The Portland Phoenix has reviewed Barava, the new Somali restaurant that opened on Congress street early last month.

The entrées, while perfectly fine, could not live up to the opening. The kabaab, “broiled with complementing addition in the tandoor” as the menu said, was a bit drier as an entrée then it seemed in the basket. But is came with a creamy, spicy, lemony hummus, and a spectacular thick African flatbread called muufo baravani.