First Night In Portland Maine

The days journey began with a flight up to Boston and then we took the Amtrak Downeaster up to Portland Maine.  Great way to avoid traffic.  It is a two and a half hour train ride.  They have a cafe car that has many local beers from Maine breweries.  So you get a Maine experience before you enter the state. 

We got to our hotel about 6PM. We stayed in the Old Port section of the city.  Our room looked righ onto the hardor.   It was such a nice evening and we wanted to get some dinner. You can literally walk in any direction here and come across so many different bars and restaurants. We had a recommend for a place called Novare Res Biwr Hall.  This was only about ten minutes from our hotel. And much like the name sounds, it had the appearance of an old European beer hall. It had large covered areas with picnic tables.  

They have about forty beers on tap here plus more in bottles.  Definitely something for everyone's taste.   

The food menu is sort of tapas style.  Some smaller bites and charcuterie to share. 

We started with the crab Rangoon grilled cheese which has been recommended. 

While this was a great concept, it was something that overpronissd and underdelivered.  Had this been called a crab grilled cheese, I actually might have enjoyed it more. There was a decent amount of crab and a creamy cheese. But it really lacked that punch that most good crab Rangoon has.  And the dipping sauce was not to my taste. It was close.to an applesauce taste and consistency which I didn't think went well with the sandwich.  It was well grilled.  Super crispy without being greasy.  

The star attraction was a charcuterie platter.  We ordeed the chefs recommended cheese and meat.   We also ordered a tin if snow salmon. This is what appeared.  

Such a well composed charcuterie plate. The cheese was a milder blue cheese.  And the meat was thinly sliced and smoked beef. Cleverly complemented by three kinds of peppers, fresh bread,  marcona almonds, raisins and spicy mustard.  You could make so many different tasty bites.   My favorite was taking the small cherry peppers and stuffing with a little bit of the cheese.  Kid of like a fresh  jalapeno popper.

The tin of smoked salmon had a fun presentation.  

it was just like the tuna can from Chicken of the Sea or Bumblebee.  Deliciously smoked and still moist. This was really good with the spicy mustard.  

We walked around a bit more exploring the area and decided we wanted a couple of more snacks. We headed to Liquid Riot Bottling Company.   We had great seats right at the water.  The menu here was also smaller bites for sharing.   We started with the smoked jackfruit bao buns.  

Jackfruit is grown in tropical climates.  You will see it very often in the Caribbean.  It is originally from southern India. It is subtly sweet, sort of a combination of mango and apple.  It has a very firm texture and is often used a a meat substitute as it was here.  The texture hold.up well to cooking and you will sometimes seemit shredded to make pulled "pork".  This has been BBQ'd and had a slightly smoky flavor.  The veggies added.a nice crunch. And the siracha sauce.on the side was great for dipping.  

We also tried a cucumber dish.  This was a spin on the traditional vinegrette you often see as a marinade.for.cucumbers. instead, this marinade tasted like the peanut sauce served with chicken satay. So good with the crispy chunks of cucumber and red cabbage.  

We also had an order of fresh cut fries.  

A lot of times these types of fries are cut too thickly so that by the time the inside is cookedz the outside is burned.  Here, they were thinly cut.  And I am guessing they did the double fry.  That is where you deep fry potatoes at a lower temperature (about 350°) to cook the inside. Then you remove them and drain any excess oil. Then you boost the heat up to 375° for the final dry which crisps up the outside.  These were cooked perfectly. Crispy outside and still pillowly inside.  They came with your dipping sauces. The best was a velvety beer cheese followed by a Korean aioli which had slight notes of siracha.  There was also traditional ketchup and a spicy mustard which I didn't think went with the fries.  

We are here for four more nights and there are.many places still to try. We will just pick a new direction to walk.