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BRIAN DUFF

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The Little Tap House gets sizeable praise

Small name, big delivery
Little Tap House seems to be what it sounds like: a welcoming, affordable spot for local draft beer and accessibly interesting pub food.

By: BRIAN DUFF | June 13, 2013

What’s coming to Portland for summer

New tastes
The coming summer looks to be the busiest in memory, food-wise. We are in the midst of a flurry of restaurant openings, and thanks to recent regulatory adjustments food-trucks are beginning to proliferate in our city.

By: BRIAN DUFF | June 07, 2013

Blue Rooster goes high-end informal

Park it here
If you want to know what making a food truck into an actual restaurant will be like, check out the new Blue Rooster Food Company

By: BRIAN DUFF | May 16, 2013

At Buck’s, naked is the way to be

Just the meat, please
At Buck's Naked BBQ the meat is cooked plain — without being infused or coated with in any particular sauce. This is meat we can relate to.

By: BRIAN DUFF | May 09, 2013

Bohemia for business folk

Nietzsche thought that "however vigorously a man may seem to leap over from one thing into its opposite, closer observation will nonetheless discover the dovetailing where the new building grows out of the old." So it is at the North Point, a new Old Port restaurant and drinking spot run by a transplanted New York restaurateur and his brother.

By: BRIAN DUFF | April 17, 2013

Kushiya Benkay finds lovely harmony

A beautiful blend
What is most pleasing about Kushiya Benkay, a sort of skewer-pub from the folks at Benkay Sushi, is the way it brings together several impulses without going too crazy about any particular one.

By: BRIAN DUFF | April 10, 2013

Saco star: Luis’s phenomenal arepas

Delicious inside and out
You might want to hug Luis, or at least flirt with the guy, because he is creating first-rate arepas in his charming little shop.

By: BRIAN DUFF | March 20, 2013

Entering the club at 91 South

In praise of privacy
There was a time when private clubs existed to meet a pressing need: maybe as a way to keep out parvenus, or to discreetly get into some gay stuff.

By: BRIAN DUFF | March 13, 2013

These fish really are delicious, if scarce

Every culture has its totemic animal, anthropologists suggest, and ours here in Maine might just be the groundfish.

By: BRIAN DUFF | February 20, 2013

Whiskey isn’t just the water of life

A civilized drink
Vodka is supposed to taste like nothing and gin is supposed to taste like something (juniper).

By: BRIAN DUFF | February 06, 2013

The koan of Chinese food

Where can we find our moment of Zen?
It seems every time I check out a promising new Chinese place in Portland, federal officials arrest someone at a dismal Chinese restaurant elsewhere in Maine (this week it was the Twin Super Buffet in Brewer that was raided by the feds).

By: BRIAN DUFF | January 23, 2013

Eventide’s superior oysters, and imaginative cuisine

Slurping with delight
When you take the helm of a great institution, it can create a paralyzing fear of screwing things up.

By: BRIAN DUFF | January 16, 2013

Portland should play catch-up in the coming year

Trend-getters
Each century remains mired in the past one for about a dozen years.

By: BRIAN DUFF | December 26, 2012

Plenty of sweetness, though a touch of sour too

Tastes of the year
Our lives are dominated by strange forces we cannot control — economic, demographic, epigenetic, psycho-sexual.

By: BRIAN DUFF | December 19, 2012

Review: Gather

Community, local flavors, and expert preparation
As we continue to withdraw from the institutions that once organized modern life, we fill the abandoned spaces with restaurants.

By: BRIAN DUFF | November 28, 2012

Comparative burger eating

What’s between the buns?
Cheap burgers might be the biggest problem in America's culinary landscape.

By: BRIAN DUFF | November 21, 2012

The new Salvadoran spot on Congress is a must-taste

Flores blooms in fall
No restaurant in Portland captures the look of a good hole-in-the-wall better than Flores, a new Salvadoran spot next to Bodega Latina — right where Congress Street starts to curve and head downhill, so to speak.

By: BRIAN DUFF | October 31, 2012

Two teahouses complement each other’s flavors

Steeped in tradition
For those who care about politics we are entering the most tension-filled fortnight in quite a while.

By: BRIAN DUFF | October 24, 2012

Review: Spread Restaurant

Spread ’em: A new restaurant celebrates smooth tastes
There is a certain sort of space that, for the very reason that it seems doomed, summons hopeful strivers who expect to redeem them.

By: BRIAN DUFF | October 03, 2012

The newest best reason to go to Brunswick

The Tao of deliciousness
Early this year on this page I urged Mainers to stop complaining about our choices for Chinese food — to cease wishing for "a transcendent Chinese place that surprises and delights."

By: BRIAN DUFF | September 26, 2012

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