A Bit of Pampering

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After a good night’s sleep, we started the day with our Covid $5 continental breakfast. Bagel, cream cheese, yogurt and coffee. The coffee is self-serve in the pantry down the hall and unfortunately Starbucks, and not the strong stuff at that. To get the breakfast you needed to go to the lobby and pick it up from the restaurant. The bagel was just a bagel, not even sliced, but it was $5 and convenient. Tarragon got his breakfast and some love and we took our time getting ready. No big plans for the day just lunch, some spa time for me, and dinner. A pretty laid-back day.

First on the agenda was lunch at High Roller’s Lobster Co. The best way to describe this is that it is a combination a 50’s style drug store counter with a huge hipster twist. The place is obviously owned and operated by young 20 something hipsters. Including no menus, except the phone app method, ordered and paid on the app, they just brought the food to your table, the ultimate in no human interaction, yet another sign of the decline of society. They did have a very interesting take on social distancing. Instead of just blocking off every other booth or counter seat, the filled them with skeletons. There was a family sitting at the table across the aisle from us, the mother didn’t realize they were not human and thought her son was hitting the people at the next booth. When she did realize that they were Skelton’s she laughed, I commented, “and that is what happens when you don’t social distance.”

The place was non-stop with people going in and out, take out orders, we timed our arrival perfectly, any later we would have had a wait. Lunch, well of course it was lobster. Jerry had a lobster grilled cheese with bacon and avocado (was supposed to be tomato, but either they made a mistake or my fat fingers pressed the wrong thing on the app.) I had a classic lobster roll, except not on a hot dog bun but a brioche roll. Choose warm butter over the mayo version. They were both loaded with lobster. We also had a side of fries seasoned with old bay. The lobster roll was good, but not as good as Ed’s Lobster in SoHo (I hate to admit that something in NYC could be better than Maine) or other’s we have had in Maine.

After lunch I headed to Akari for a mani/pedi. It was a very relaxing 90 minutes, most of which was spent on the manicure complete with massage and paraffin treatment. It was strange that the movie playing in the nail room was Crazy Rich Asians, I will let you figure out why that might be odd. While I was at the spa Jerry was shopping at Reny’s a local department store that has everything from camping gear to groceries. He discovered it the last time we were here and really fell in love with it.

We met back at the hotel and then just walked around downtown for a bit. Nothing else on our itinerary until dinner. We of course gave Tarragon attention and his lobster temptation treats. He spends most of the day at the foot of the bed sleeping.

Dinner was early 7 pm, the only time we could get a reservation. We typically have dinner at 8 on vacation or at home, but especially on vacation. Our reservation was at Union, located in the Press Hotel. The hotel was originally just that a newspaper publishing house. It is located across the street from City Hall. The restaurant had a nice open kitchen and the seating was very socially distance. It was a bit on the hipster side but the food was farm to table and all local ingredient’s (allegedly, more on that later.)

Now that we are in full vacation mode, martinis went by the wayside and we were back to our champagne or prosecco for out cocktail. The menu was again on the app, but I just need time and bigger print, so we requested real menus, that they gladly provided. The choices were few, it was a very small and basic menu, seasonal given they were going for that farm to table approach. It wasn’t really a difficult decision for us, mainly because they were just a little to creative and were very hung up on the Kale and goat cheese thing, or just had some other ingredient that didn’t go with the main protein. A perfect example of was one of the apps. Goat cheese arancini, add a beet sauce and you have my worst nightmare. Fortunately, there were two standouts to choose from, a cheese and charcuterie board and a smoked parsnip soup.

The charcuterie board was nicely put together, but they needed to have brought the cheese to room temperature to really bring out the flavor, especially on the blue cheese. The best thing on the board was the pork rillette. The smoked parsnip soup was also good, but needed a salt element, a bit of pork belly or crispy pancetta would have really put the dish over the top. Jerry, liked it just the way it was. There was not good salad option so we just went to the entrées with a couple of sides.

Jerry ordered the Fresh Campanella pasta with Jonah (Maine) crab. It was underwhelming. It was a really good concept but the sauce was bland and they didn’t really do anything with the crab other than through it on there. It also needed pepper and cheese. I had the pan seared Casco Bay sole. This was cooked perfectly crisp on the outside very moist on the inside. The draw back here was the garnish, the carrots were good but the chickpeas served no point and were very undercooked. Over all the dish was a bit on the salty side. They were very inconsistent on the seasoning. We had roasted fingerlings and a large buttermilk biscuit as sides. The biscuit was actually the best part of the meal. Tender yet crispy on the top. We did have a fairly decent Napa Valley sauvignon blanc.

We ended dinner with a couple of desserts, Jerry the lemon tart (deconstructed of course) and I had what they called a Boudini, but it was chocolate mouse, call it what you want, but that is what it was. The lemon tart part of Jerry’s dessert was good, but and here is where they lost me on the farm to table, the strawberries were awful. Frist, it is not strawberry season in Oregon let alone Maine so there was zero chance they were local. At best from California or Mexico, both of which do not produce decent flavored strawberries. They weren’t even close to a French strawberry.

I don’t want to leave the impression that it was a horrible experience or probably not worth going to again during a non-Covid time, but it was just not up to our expectations for a dinner in Portland Maine.

Dinner over, we paid the check and strolled back to our hotel and to bed. Which in hindsight was a big mistake to go to bed with a full stomach. Jerry had heartburn all night.

Tomorrow, we are off to Bath.

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Photos

Wharf Street
View from our Room

Buttermilk Busicuit
Dish of the Day

Comments

[Sharon Hughson]

Biscuit Takes the Cake
It is a LOT underwhelming if a buttermilk biscuit is the dish of the day (although I do love a good buttermilk biscuit). I hope the food gets better, and thanks for reminding me about Ed’s lobster rolls. I really want one now.