Food

Triple shot

Visiting three new Portland cafés
As a sign of difficult economic times, a turnover in cafés is a noisy indicator but a significant one.

By BRIAN DUFF | November 04, 2009

Brave new world

Styxx’s management sets an oddly pleasant menu
How many marriages are born or nursed in our city’s bars?

By BRIAN DUFF | October 28, 2009

Fall cocktails at local restaurants
If you’ve got special reason to drown or celebrate this fall, Portland’s mixologists offer several autumnal elixirs that take advantage of the flavors and clean-slate feeling of fall.

By DEIRDRE FULTON | October 14, 2009

Solid food, found

Hang on to your dosh -- visit the Lost Coin Café
The Lost Coin Café is unlike any other restaurant in Portland.

By BRIAN DUFF | October 07, 2009

Gustation junction

Flavors mingle at The Corner Room
Since all three of Harding Lee Smith's restaurants are on corners, one wonders why he chose to name his newest one The Corner Room.

By BRIAN DUFF | September 30, 2009

The queen of Cambodian cooking

Her friends call her 'So Peep'
Makara Meng, co-owner of Mittapheap World Market, welcomed me to her relative's suburban house in South Portland for an authentic Cambodian dinner.

By LINDSAY STERLING | September 23, 2009

Community appeal

The Café at Pat's is a classic local spot
It is tricky to manage the transition from cult of personality to a rationalized institution.

By BRIAN DUFF | September 16, 2009

In 10 years

From a handful of restaurants to a restaurant town
It wasn't always that Portland was "America's foodiest small town."

By LINDSAY STERLING | September 16, 2009

Seasonal fare(well)

The chef of Five Fifty-Five bids adieu to summer
With Labor Day weekend behind us, so goes the high tourist season here in Maine. While this means less crowded beaches and the possibility of finding a weekend parking space in the Old Port, it signifies a major transition for restaurateurs around the city.

By LEISCHEN STELTER | September 09, 2009

Amazing Grace

Sweet tastes, beautiful building, heavenly reward
Few of us bother to go to church, so Mainers must find ways to reuse our houses of worship, just as we do our riverside mills in this post-industrial age. While several restaurants have put mothballed mill buildings to use, Grace Restaurant's repurposing of the Chestnut Street Methodist Church is the most impressive reclamation project yet.

By BRIAN DUFF | September 02, 2009

Hot exotic adventure tonight!

Shave cabbage, rub pork ribs, peel yuca, and more
Unless you're a vegetarian or fried-pigskin-intolerant, I have an adventure for you. It requires about three hours. It's exotic, but does not require calling the phone numbers on the next few pages. Depending on who you are, it requires little or a lot of bravery. It's called cooking.

By LINDSAY STERLING | August 26, 2009

Life after the Old Port?

Owners of Rachels L'Osteria share their experience moving to the neighborhood
As the central hub for tourists and locals alike, the Old Port seems like the perfect spot for a restaurant. But sometimes being in the center of the madness can detract from the experience, not only for diners, but also for the owners.

By LEISCHEN STELTER | August 19, 2009

Outdoor retreat

Twenty Milk's excellent lawn-dining experience
Portland's Old Port is most beautiful just when it is least hospitable — in the bitter cold of winter when the crowds dissipate and Pandora LaCasse's whimsical lights decorate the streets. Recently the Portland Regency Hotel has endeavored to capture some of the charms of winter in warmer months.

By BRIAN DUFF | August 12, 2009

For serious kids

The Salt Exchange experiments with food
In last week's New York Times , David Brooks suggested that for people who are not parents there are "no grand designs..., no high ambitions. Politics becomes insignificant. Even words like justice lose meaning."

By BRIAN DUFF | August 05, 2009

A long-ago farm

Exploring the origins of great food
Last week while you were reading here about Portland chef Krista Desjarlais's efforts at Bresca, I was cooking with her mother, Maili Kern, who lives in the West End. She taught me how to make rosolje, an incredible roast beef and root-vegetable salad from Estonia (recipe at immigrantkitchens.blogspot.com ).

By LINDSAY STERLING | July 29, 2009

Full circle

Bresca's new collaborative effort brings intimacy back to dining
For someone who once envisioned herself sequestered in a dusty library somewhere in England reading medieval literature, Krista Desjarlais, executive chef and owner of Bresca, has a life far from quiet and solitude.

By LEISCHEN STELTER | July 22, 2009

Italian escape

The best of Milan in Portland
One of my earliest culinary memories is of my father bringing home a tin of hard, crisp, almondy Italian cookies. As my sisters and I ate, my father dimmed the lights and put a match to the thin paper wrappers. They began to float like enchanted lanterns. I thought these Italians must be magical.

By BRIAN DUFF | July 15, 2009

A beam of light

El Rayo lets the ingredients shine
We live in an era in which we are grateful when people get the big things right, even if the details are off. Too often these days we find the opposite: well-titled books with little insight, an economy that "grows" but produces nothing of actual value, clever people who lack the deeper qualities of character.

By BRIAN DUFF | July 08, 2009

Finding a way

Making Nicaraguan gallo pinto
If it weren't for Nicaragua, Jenny Sanchez and her favorite dish, gallo pinto, wouldn't be here. She's a 75-year-old grandmother. She's short, has wavy dark hair, black eyes. She leans over slightly even when she's standing upright and has a stiff, belabored walk. She lives alone in a neighborhood of single-floor apartments.

By LINDSAY STERLING | July 01, 2009

Outdoor bites

Eve's at the Garden's lovely new happy-hour menu
Nothing democratizes like nature. Rousseau thought all primitives were equal until the moment someone thought to build a hut and move indoors. Nowadays people who would never enjoy similar books, films, or music nonetheless appreciate the beauty of the outdoors in much the same way.

By BRIAN DUFF | June 17, 2009

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