Went down to Portland for a weekend get-a-way and had a great time with my sister at the boat show there. We decided that we really loved the Hinkley picnic boat and will order one as soon as we can scrape together $750,000 from the loose change in our pockets! Ann took us out for lunch at the Flatbread Co., a wood-fired brick oven pizza joint on the waterfront. We walked from the boat show and came upon the block long St. Pat's day parade with the Governor leading along....kind of cool! Greg and I would have a chance to see the Governor later at a dinner we attended for Equality Maine.

The interior of the Flatbread Co. is largely built and decorated with recycled and reclaimed materials and the seating booths were beautiful and large and roomy :-) Lots of kid art on the walls and lots of yuppie granolas with their kids in attendance. The only things on the menu were pizza and salad, which really reinforce my thoughts on restaurants....make it simple! Have 4-6 things on the menu and do them right...too many places have pages and pages of things to eat and I think the quality goes down the more entrees there are from which to choose...but I digress, again!

One can order a whole or a 1/2 pizza and most if not all of the ingredients are organic (I'm sure a Portland reader will set me straight on this) I had a mozzerella and Asiago cheese pizza, Greg had mushroom and onion and Ann had the maple and fennel sausage pizza. I thought mine was outstanding, the cheese was a perfect mixture of strong asiago and melty mozzerella. Ann's pizza was too sweet, I would have liked an organic spicy sausage instead, and Greg's was nice, though not as strong as mine. Thin whole wheat crust was excellent too.

Greg and I had desserts which were alright..he the chocolate brownie sundae and I the apple crisp a-la-mode. Mine was very homemade tasting with excellent crust, though a kind of dry interior. Very cinnamon-y and warm...perfect for the 30 degree day. Greg's was warm too, but not as fudgy as you'd like that dessert to be.

Our service was a bit poor and our server kind of spacy. Ann's coffee was cold on the first cup and the server offered to make a fresh pot for her...nice save on her part..then she forgot to bring it out! She also forgot to bring back Ann's unfinished pizza in a doggie bag, so Chowder, Ann's new yellow lab, missed out on lunch. Our desserts took forever and after waiting for our server to come do the credit card thing, Ann whipped out her wad of cash and paid by greenbacks (so much for saving for the boat!)

So, we loved the place, the location, the food, but not the service. The bathrooms were kinda dingy too.

Enjoy,
Seth