It wouldn't be a Chopsticks Optional honeymoon it we didn't stuff ourselves silly with delicious Maine eats! We took a few days for a short getaway to Portland and Kennebunkport after our wedding, where I gained all the weight I lost from suffering four days of food poisoning the week of my wedding. You read that right, what luck! Needless to say, after a brutal diet of bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast, I was ravenous! Here are a few highlights from our Portland leg:
Eventide Oyster Co: A trip to Portland wouldn't be complete without a stop by Eventide. It's our go to spot for a brown butter lobster roll but with each visit, we discover even better, innovative bites.
Bangs Island Mussel Tamago: fried mussels nestled in a creamy egg concoction, swirled with a salty umami-packed nam prik sauce and artfully sprinkled with pickled cabbage and crispy puffed rice. It was almost too pretty to eat, almost.
Roasted Jumbo Winter Point Oysters: We love raw oysters but these roasted beauties were too tempting to pass. Crispy fried potato added a wonderful textural contrast to the briny oysters but it was the Korean BBQ sauce that elevated this one bite wonder.
Torn Maine Scallops: These little beauties were caramelized to perfection and bathed in the same brown butter elixir from their signature lobster roll but it was the sweet creamy parsnip puree that sang to us and brought all the elements together.
Not that we don't love the Capital Region food scene, but for my birthday weekend, I wanted an extra special culinary experience. One of our favorite places to visit and eat is Portland, Maine so we went on a little foodie tour. We packed a lot of bites into two days. Here a few highlights:
Pai Men Miyake
Ramen of the non-college staple kind. This Japanese noodle joint is some seriously good eats. I indulged in a bowl of Mazeman--a low broth ramen made with scallop and aka miso dashi, porchetta xo, yam croquettes, miso cured egg, uni cream, wakame seaweed, edamame, and menma bamboo shoots with a giant spoonful of salmon roe.
Holy Donuts
Would you believe that all these donuts are made with Maine potatoes? Plus they only use pure cane sugar and glazes are from fruit juices or vegetable dyes only; no artificial anything. The results are fluffy donuts much like cider donuts but Holy Donuts puts a spin on its flavors with unconventional glazes. We were big fans of the berry cannoli and coffee brandy flavors but the money bite was in a freshly fried cheddar bacon potato donut. Yup! As odd as it sounds, this savory bite totally worked!
Duckfat
Of course there's always room for more donuts. Not only are these citrus-scented doughnut holes fried in duck fat but they're served with a salted caramel made with duckfat. For good measure, we paired our doughnuts with duckfat salted caramel milkshakes. Can you hear our arteries clogging up? It was all worth it.
Eventide Oyster Co.
This joint is home to the best brown butter lobster roll in Portland but lucky for us also serves Sunday brunch. That meant starting my birthday off with a bloody mary oyster shooter followed by this magical bite: fried cauliflower and oyster with romesco, almonds, and a luxurious egg yolk. Heaven!
Benkay Sushi
We just couldn't leave Portland without more bites of lobster. In this case, in sashimi form with grapeseed oil and fine Japanese sea salt. By the way, even Anthony Bourdain and Eric Ripert have stopped by here, and for a good reason. It serves some of the best seafood.
I cannot begin to tell you how well we ate in Maine. Our vacation culinary adventures began in Portland, Maine. This coastal city is foodie bliss. We've written about our weekly sushi cravings and being right by the sea coast, we couldn't resist taking advantage of some of the best and freshest seafood in town. What I really wanted to try was Miyake, mainly because Alex Guarnashelli declared their mushroom miso soup The Best Thing I Ever Ate and I remember seeing Andrew Zimmern making a Bizzare Foods stop, but being on a limited budget and because J hates mushrooms (one of these days he'll be a convert), we decided to go on a Yelp sushi search.
Our findings led us to the best sushi meal we've ever had at Benkay Japanese Restaurant and Sushi Bar. We consider this our #1 all-time sushi spot now. Too bad it's now 4hrs away from Albany. We might very well consider a weekend trip just to eat this sushi again.
I've been meaning to get around to this for a while, and hopefully once I get out of my current job and into something with somewhat human hours I can start writing relatively regularly again (just 2 more weeks).
Now, to be fair, before I met R my idea of a great dinner was putting frozen shrimp in a pot of ramen. I was really proud of myself for that one, so inventive. She's the one who taught me how to taste, who showed me what real cooking can be, and how much fun it can be. I never grilled before I met her, now it's my favorite thing to listen to John Sterling call a Yankees game in the back, grill flaming away, beer in hand. I use the beer to time my grilling, if you were wondering.
All that said, I really feel like R captured our culinary experiences in Maine beautifully, and I'm hoping she's planning another post to describe the lobster pound we basically maxed our credit cards at 3 days in a row (hint). I don't feel there's a ton I can add about the food, so I'm going to talk about the beer instead.
Being a fan of craft brewing, I love living in the northeast. R kind of humors me when we go on vacation, we always look up and visit at least one brewery near wherever we're staying even though she doesn't really drink. Win-win for me, since at tastings I get to drink hers too if I like it. Here, in order of visit, are the breweries in Maine we've visited and my thoughts on their brews:
