Angler's Diner, Searsport, ME

Tonight we were craving diner food again, but wanted something different, so we took off for Searsport to the Angler's Diner. I have always wanted to try this place...it looks good, as evidenced by so many cars in the parking lot at all hours. Its a bit of a dive to look at, but that's what we like to call Chaaaam up here!

We were sent there by someone who said they had the best fried clams on the midcoast, and they were right. The portion was extremely large and very very fresh. We ordered Ceasar salads of course..(I am still on a quest for the most perfect ceasar salad in Maine and these were very good) the salads had a real ceasar dressing on top, not steeped in creamy dressing base as most ceasars are..this one had lots of fresh lemon and a dash of garlic. The cheese could've been more plentiful as could the dressing portion as the salads were HUGE, much bigger than anticipated. I ordered chicken and it was fresh and juicy, just perfect. Lots of happy smiles all around and very friendly, but busy wait staff. A full bar compliments the menu and fresh and fried seafood are the way to go here. The Angler's platter had loads of seafood including shrimp, but not clams for a very reasonable $15.00. We were stuffed enough to wave off their desserts, so we'll be going back.

From here, we had to catch the late showing of Charlies Angels in Belfast, a totally fluff movie, but we're there for the entertainment value anyway.
Food A
Atmosphere A

Enjoy,

Seth

Chocolate Grille, Searsport, ME

I went to the Chocolate Grille with David and Eric last night after attending the premiere of Trap, a 15 minute short film written, directed, produced and performed by a Belfast woman. David said that the Chocolate Grille was his newest place to hang out because it had a good bar and was different, though very cookie cutter.....my response was "It sounds like a swank Denny's with a bar." and thats what it was.
I must say, I was impressed by the interior.....the restaurant actually has a very nice interior of sponged walls with black and white photos...black banquettes and tables and a very nice bar where we sat to eat. The bartender was great, big drinks that tasted good. We ordered off the bar menu and David had the crabcake special appetizer which was bready and not too terrific. I had the spinach and artichoke dip with crackers and veggies...The dish had some kind of bacon flavoring, which was terrible. It was also served in a bread bowl, which is a total waste of time and bread. The crackers were stale. We asked the bartender about the dish and if it was supposed to have bacon and he said no and took it off our bill without question. Ceasar salads came next which were basic, but very good. Eric tried encrusted salmon fillets which he said were moist, but he didn't like the crust. No dessert for us. I give the place a B+ for atmosphere and a C+ for food.

Enjoy,

Seth

LB, Belfast Maine

Its that time of year again here in Maine...Our first house guests of the season showed up a few days ago wantin' lobstah. Now, most visitors to Maine love soft shell lobstah because thats what they are taught to like...the shell is easy to break and the meat just slides right out. Dunk it in butter and you have a meal. Well, its still May here and hard shell lobstahs are just beginning to trickle in. these babies are packed with meat and taste entirely different than soft shell lobsters. I called my friends at "Lb" in Belfast and was greeted with a relieving "just got a load in fresh this morning..how many do you want? Are we cooking them for you or are you picking them up uncooked?" Lb, which is a play on pound, the measure by which lobsters are priced, is located on Marshall's Warf down by the tug boats in Belfast Harbor. Its owned and run by Sarah and David Carlson, two hard working admirable souls who have become very, very dear friends of ours in the last two years. Our dog, who does not play well with other dogs at all, loves David and Sarah almost as much as she loves Shadow, the Carlson's happy black lab.

Lb not only offers lobster by the pound, but David and Sarah will cook your lobsters for you and have them ready for you to pick up, or you can eat them on site, overlooking beautiful Belfast Harbor, at picnic tables. Come at the right time and you will see the lobstermen unloading the day's catch at the dock.

The Carlson's have come up with a very unique offering as well, a traditional Maine clam bake for larger parties looking for something different to do for the evening. Sarah also makes the best lobstah roll in town, thanks to her secret grilled and buttered roll.

Getting back to the matter at hand, Lobstah, I went to pick up the beasts and David pulled three beautiful hardshell 1.5 pounders out of the tank for me after asking the what, whos, wheres, and hows of our evening meal. Be ready to get grilled with questions as to how you are serving your meal, what else you are serving the meal with, and who is eating the beasts. Both David and Sarah want all their customers to be happy, so they ask questions and essentially custom tailor the lobster sizes to the meal. They told us that the lobsters were super hard shell and packed with meat. They told us exactly how to steam them (please, one never boils one's lobster), and exactly how much time the lobsters should be in the steam for hard shell (18 minutes). Our guests raved about the lobster so much, that I heard about it all the next day in the car. They had never had such lobsters, what a rare treat, etc..etc.. To top it off, David gave us some fresh mussels to try and said that he would have oysters soon.

We'll be back for that! There is not another place to get as good lobsters or as good, friendly service in the mid-coast. A solid A for effort, friendliness, and overall good food.

Watch for the opening of David and Sarah's new Tapas Bar, Three Tides, directly behind their lobstah Lb.

Enjoy,
Seth

The Hideaway Diner, Northport Maine

Greg and I went for a quick dinner at the Hideaway...This log cabin diner in Northport is one of the only local restaurants that is open all year. We often go for breakfast, and let me tell you, they have wonderful eggs on a biscuit. But this review is for dinner.......We were one of four tables, and the only people "from away". If you are not from Maine and move here when you are 6 months old and live here all your life, you are still considered "from away." Though my friend Sarah2 (see Darby's review below) said that if we lived through the cold all last winter and survived to complain about it, we were that much closer to being less "from away" than we were last spring.

Greg was dying for fish and chips and I reaaaaallly wanted chicken tenders for dinner...don't ask us why, we are growing boys! Our server was so very helpful and attentive...full of smiles and little quips...it was great. She brought the food pretty quickly (mmm peas tooo) and it was delicious. I have to give the Hideaway at least three stars for diner food, especially at dinner time. Times are tough and so we have to watch how much we spend. That said, there are times we are just itchin' to get out of the house and the Hideaway is a great, inexpensive alternative. Filling dinner complete with peas came to about 16 bucks...can't beat that with a stick.
We didn't try the pie this trip, but I know it is reaaally good.
Enjoy,
Seth

Darby's Restaurant, Belfast Maine
Last Night six of us went to Darby's Restaurant after seeing The Hours at the local theater. Needless to say, we all needed martinis to digest what we had just watched on the screen! Darby's is Belfast's only restaurant with a welcoming, casual pub-type atmosphere. It’s a restaurant about which you don't have to think about going you can just stop in for a burger and a beer. We all ordered drinks, 3 Cosmopolitans, 1 Manhattan, 1 vodka and 1 glass of wine. Strike one:We waited a bit for the drinks, but during the wait, we ordered and chatted about the movie. David got a bit restless about the drinks service because it took so long. We've all started to look at eateries with a critical eye since I started this site and since David and his wife, Sarah, are about to open a Tapas eatery/ bar in Belfast called Three Tides. Three Tides will be a wonderful place to eat outside on the deck overlooking the harbor. I have tremendous respect for David and Sarah and our friend Ben, all of whom are building this bar from the ground up, by themselves. It's been a long road to hoe, but the place will be ready for the summer rush.

While we were waiting for the drinks, we decided pretty fast what to order. For me: Chicken chili with cashews sounded perfect. At $6.95 for a bowl, it was fairly attractive. Greg had his usual fish and chips…he can't get enough of the fried stuff! David and Ben ordered picky-toe crab rolls. Another friend at the table whom I've labeled Sarah2 so as not to confuse her with Sarah1, David's wife, didn't eat as she had way too much popcorn during the movie. Sarah1 ordered Asparagus and cheddar soup.

Strike two: The server put a basket of warm white rolls on the table and we dove right in. There was no butter to go along. All hell seemed to break loose as we went nuts over the restaurant's failure to supply this simple fare. When we finally got butter, the rolls were cold, but not as cold as the butter, which was frozen in little individually sealed packets. Bad form.

The food arrived quite quickly, but so did Strike Three. My chili arrived and looked anemic. It had shredded chicken, lots of water, and some crumbled blanched cashews on top as a garnish. It wasn't the thick rich chili with spicy ground chicken and plump whole roasted cashews that I was expecting. The kicker came when I dove in to find that the chili was tepid at best. Yuck!

Greg was halfway through his fish and chips before he gave two thumbs up. Between bites he said it was tender and flaky, but the fries were a bit squishy. Both David and Ben concurred that their picky-toe crab rolls had far too much mayo and not enough crab. Sarah1 like the flavor of her soup, but alas it was also tepid. I personally liked the fries, a bit of spice to them and hand-cut to boot.

When the server cleared our plates, she never once asked why I hadn't eaten the chili….what can I say, it was late…..I'm giving Darby's a solid C for this visit. I'm sure we'll be back.

As I said before Darby's is an easy place to eat, and there were pleas at the table to give the place another try because Ben and Sarah2 had been there the night before and eaten at the bar and had a lovely time. They actually raved about the chili when I ordered it, saying it was their favorite thing on the menu. I must admit that Greg and I have eaten at the bar before and had a wonderful time as well. There is not much to mess up with a Caesar salad and burger though.

What I am saying is…. try it, but don't blame me if your soup is cold…I warned you.

Enjoy,

Seth

Darby's Revisited 5/19/03

Went back to Darby's last night with my sister for a quick bite. I went for the safe cheeseburger and fries and she had the Ceasar salad with chicken. Service was good and attentive, so as soon as we sat down, we had a drink order in. The burger was delicious but the fries were limp and cold...too bad. My sister ate about 1/2 of her ceasar because she was hungry. She said it was really salty and there was too much dressing. From what I saw, the dressing wasn't a ceasar style, but more like oil and vinegar and the raw onions on top were not a welcome addition.

We poured over the menu to try and find something to eat and decided that most dishes just missed the mark..meaning that some sounded good until we read the descriptions where there was always some wierd ingredient that didn't sound good. The menu ranges from burgers to Pad Thai to pinky toe crabmeat Quesadillas with brie cheese...its a bit all over the place.

Darby's will have to reinvent itself this summer to be competitive as there are now two more restaurants opening up in town.

Darby's Yet Again The other night, Greg and I met our friend Vicky at Darby's before going to the movies. I know enough now to stay away from certain things. The drinks were good as was the service. We ordered a Cobb salad, a Fiesta salad with black beans instead of Chicken chili with cashews (see above) and a burger with chedder and fries. All in all the meal was just fine. Actually the burger was very good and the Fiesta salad was a nice change of pace. Just remember that Darby's is a pub and the less inventive foods are the better choices. By the way, we saw Leagally Blonde, which was realllllllllllly silly...but thats life in a small town!

Sizzling Cornbread

Greg loves this recipe so much that I find myself making this at least once a week. It's very easy to remember and I just start throwing things into a bowl and volia! You can add anything you like to this version: course ground pepper, sundried tomatoes, jalapenos, whatever.

Preheat oven to 350 and put a small or medium cast iron skillet to warm in the oven.

Medium bowl:
I cup cornmeal
1 cup flour
1/3 cup sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt
1 cup milk
1 stick butter
1/3 cup olive oil
1 egg slightly beaten

Add everything to a bowl in order above and stir.
Take skillet out of oven and grease with generous amounts of olive oil. Put back in oven to warm. When ready take back out and scape in mixture. Let cook for about 20 minutes, or until it appears firm on top and just very slightly brown. Turn up heat to broil and just crisp top to your liking...Greg loves his cornbread crispy on the outside and moist on the inside and I've fooled around and found that this is the best way to get the bread exactly right.

Pop out of pan and smear with lots of butter or a big glass of cold milk!

Enjoy!
Seth

Ingrahams on Richard's Hill, Rockport, Maine
Ingrahams website

We went here for our anti-valentine's day dinner. That is, we went on the 13th and had almost the whole restaurant to ourselves. We have a problem with a lot of the restaurants in the mid-coast because they either have nice enough food and no atmosphere or, they have GREAT atmosphere and terrible food. Ingraham's has pretty good atmosphere and really nice food. They throw in a wandering minstral from Thursday through Sunday for your listening enjoyment. We had the great pleasure of listening to John Boswell strum his guitar as he roamed through the dining rooms singing like a pro.

Do take my advice and book a reservation in the "library" (quotation marks are used here because the room actually looks like that spare room in your basement where you construct floor to ceiling bookcases out of unfinished pine just so you have someplace to put your collection of trashy romance novels) As I say, we like atmosphere and this quirky room where the bar is located is pretty cool. The rest of rooms in this old farmhouse have been transformed into smallish dining areas that aren't as charming.

We had a great sampling from the menu. As I can't eat seafood, I'll have to take Greg's word for how good his food was. His appetite was as big as his popeye arms and so he ordered the French onion soup, crab cakes, and Oysters on the 1/2 shell. I ordered the sweet potato pancake and the roasted vegetables in phylo served with pasta with herbed oil.

The onion soup was good, but we decided we could do it better (a key element when trashing a restaurant's menu). The soup was actually perfect, but the bread on top was only toasted on one side and therefore got soggy sitting in the soup and there was no enough cheese dribbling down the side. The crab cakes were sublime, delectable, and mmm mmm good. The oysters, so I'm told, were extremely fresh and, this I know, served beautifully.

My dinner was a mixed review. I had the sweet potato pancakes which still give me wonderful dreams about the taste! The brandied apple cider sauce was a treat and was drizzled perfectly on the plate. It was certainly one of the best treats I've had to eat on the mid-coast and reminded me of the food at Cornelia's, one of our favorite restaurants in Chicago before they changed the menu. I should never have ordered the roasted veggies in phylo, but I was in a vegetable mood that night. Everything about it was kind of soggy, from the overdone vegetables to the "puddle" (the descriptive term on the menu) of marinara sauce. A bad choice on my part. Next time I'll be savvier. There will be a next time, so we liked this restaurant and thought it kind of romantic. The bartender was friendly and made sure that our flagons were full all night long.

I give Ingrahams a B to B+

After Ingraham's, we went to my favorite place for atmosphere on the coast, The Whale's Tooth Pub in Lincolnville for dessert as its on our way home and not too far from the house. We should have waited and gotten icecream from the Mobil station instead! I'm always disappointed with the food at the Whale's Tooth and will review it soon......

Lima bean and pea hummus

This sound terrible when emboldened, but I have never gotten anything but muffled kudos from full mouths when serving this. Greg and I personally adore lima beans...we eat them a lot with garlic and butter. I came across a recipe for lima bean hummus quite by accident and decided to try it. I've served it several times and through trial and error have made it my own.

Start with a bag of frozen baby limas and a half bag of frozen peas, an onion, garlic, olive oil, stock, ground red pepper, cilantro, and fresh parsley if you have it.

dice the onion and the garlic and saute in olive oil.
add ground red pepper (just a pinch)
salt and pepper to taste
and then throw in the beans and peas and saute, stirring frequently
when somewhat tender, add a bit of chicken or veggie stock, just to moisten bottom of pot..it will start to smell heavenly right about now!
keep stirring and add dried or fresh cilantro (I'm sure that basil would be nice in the summer)
when very tender, take off heat and add chopped parsley
drizzle more olive oil into mixture and either mash with potato masher to make a chunky dip or
transfer to blender or food processor to whip into more of a hummus dip, adding olive oil as nessesary.

Serve either warm or chill in fridge for at least two hours before serving with baby carrots, pita crisps, or blue corn chips.

enjoy!

Big G's, Winslow, Maine

This is perhaps one of the best sandwich places I have been to. This was a staple when I was in college, and the place has grown and moved three times in ten years. The atmosphere lacks something, but the food more than makes up for it. The sandwich board takes a good 15 minutes to read through if you are not familiar with the place. I have my usual favorites, the Miles Standwich which is essentially Thanksgiving dinner on bread, complete with cranberry relish, gravy, stuffing, etc or I have the Mad Max, hot spiced roast beef with melted cheese, lettuce, tomato on choice of bread.

Here is a piece of advice...if you are a first timer, order 1/2 a sandwich!...no really.....unless you are REALLY hungry, only order a half. Big G's makes its own bread (rye, wheat, white, pumpernickle) and the slices are probably 8 inches square.

The chicken finger basket is huge and the fries are great too....

All of this for an affordable price. I give Big G's a hearty A.

The first review...Ocean's Edge, East Belfast, Maine

As I said, these post are going to cover a variety of restaurants all over the place in our state. The first is a special review because I'm going to begin with the restaurant where the idea for this blogging site occured, The Ocean's Edge Restaurant in East Belfast, ME. What attracted me to this restaurant was the really nice signage on Rte1. Needless to say, I should have come to my senses when Greg questioned, "we're going to the Comfort Inn for dinner?" I thought I'd give the place the benefit of the doubt.....I should've walked away. The restaurant and the Inn are built right on the water, so I can see the attraction to the locale in the summer....Well, its still 30 degrees here at the end of March, so they couldn't have the French doors open to the Bay during out dining experience. The restaurant is what you'd expect from a Comfort Inn, a lot of mauve and straw baskets. The decor filled me with dread even before our meals came.

We ordered the deep fried mushrooms to start and they came with our drinks. I was pleasantly suprised at the generous pour from the bartender and later, the price ($5) for a mixed drink. The mushrooms were plentiful, but passable...a bit on the bland side. I then ordered what sounded good on the appetizer menu, but what turned out to be bloody awful...the pan fried tortolini rolled in spices with a marinara dipping sauce. Spices turned out to be massive amounts of paprika which dried out the pasta, or maybe it was the microwave reheating that did it???? David told me to send them back and I'm glad I didn't. (scroll down, gentle reader, to find out why)

With the arrival of dinner came groans after the server left. My Delmonico cut pepper steak smothered with sauteed red peppers was one of the worst cuts of meat I have ever seen and at $16.95, I decided to call the server over and show her the gristle cut that I received. She pleasantly took it back and asked what else they could serve me. I asked for a plain grilled chicken breast without the Jack Daniels sauce. It was very juicy, but a bit overpriced for $10.95! David ordered beef tips in the JD dipping sauce and I thought they were pretty bad looking, though he liked them. Greg has scallops that he told me later were some of the worst he's had.

We decided against dessert, had a few more drinks and hightailed it out of there.

Might be a great place for lunch in the summer, the view on the deck with a sandwich and a cold one...don't think you could go wrong there. Until next time....I give this place a solid C. By the way, for the three of us, the bill was $95.00 for bad food.

Butternut Squash Soup
I have a beautiful butternut squah soup simmering on the back of the stove. The recipe is sooo easy that I just chop and drop into the pot without really measuring. Great soup for grayish/coldish/wettish/foggyish type days. There is a good skeleton to this soup that you can really use as a jumping off point when you get comfortable with it. I did a bit of experimenting today and I like what I ended up with.

I get a hankerin' to make this soup about every two weeks. I adore the deep orange color of the liquid because its so cozy. I am dying to paint my living room walls the same color.

Start with a large stock pot and some garlic infused olive oil.
Heat up the oil and throw in about 1/2 a large yellow onion, a few cloves of garlic, and one large leek.
Fresh ground pepper and sea salt to taste.

Here's where I experimented: To the sizzling onions I added a few pinches of Madras curry and a dash of cayanne...just trust me Also threw in some sliced red peppers and baby carrots.end experimentation

A package of pre-peeled and cubed butternut squash comes next...I still feel the need to chop up the squash a bit more before dropping.
Next add two or three small hard apples. I like pink ladies or gala personally because they are hard, sweet and taste nice (read the posts during apple pie season, they'll make your mouth water). Core the apples, chop and drop into pot, skins and all (oh so healthy).
Add to this, some ground or fresh ginger.
Let everything sizzle and soften at a medium temp., turning mixture frequently. It smells gorgeous.

Today I added a bit of white wine at this point. It was open and on the bar and I wanted to feel like a chef today (try it and see what I mean. Use just enough white wine to get the bottom of the pot wet.

Now comes the stock, either veggie or chicken, homemade or canned (I'll won't tell if you won't) approximately 2 to 2.5 cups, or enough to almost cover the veggies in the pot. Bring to a boil, turn down to simmer, and let the vegetables get almost smushy.

Take off heat and let cool.

Transfer with ladle (I just got a long handled metal one and it makes me feel very important) to a blender in two batches. Puree the first batch until smooth and pu in clean bowl. Repete with second batch and transfer back to recently rinsed out stock pot...add the first batch and stir. keep on low and let the flavors meld. Just before serving, swirl in a pinch of crumbled romano cheese. (totally optional for all of you lactose intolerant souls.)

Today, I'm making fresh hot cornbread with this (not enough energy to write that experience today)

I've also served this topped with crumbled fried sage or a dollop cider infused sour cream.

Enjoy,

Seth

First post, already lost one version of this one, hope this comes out.

Welcome. This weblog came about at dinner last week with foodie friends David and Sarah. We like to get together and experiment with all types of places to eat from crab shacks to diners, to reservation-type places to other people's houses). Our friends are opening a bar/place to eat to complement their already thriving lobster pound enterprise where they sell live or cooked lobsters to locals and tourists alike. Because of this, we are often invited to conduct "bar research" with them. As we were picking through the food we ordered, David came up with bright idea of starting a restaurant review webpage for our fair state ( a two hour drive to try a restaurant is not uncommon here, so I feel that eventually, I'll cover the whole state. I've been thinking about it ever since and decided to write down some of my thoughts on the food we encounter along the way. I'm also going to throw in my musings about what is simmering on my stove on any given day. You'll get my inspirations, and my experiments, both successful and failed. I usually start with recipes I get from epicurious.com or one of my cookbooks or from something I particularly liked when eating out that I try to copy (usually to a great failure the first two or four times).

Enjoy,


Seth