Portland
This past weekend we were up in Maine, but not for GNE (although we saw some people on the road coming and going from there). Happily it was not nearly as hot as last year and we were transporting less stuff.
We had much fun.
Friday afternoon we had lunch at Whattapita, which put me into ecstasies of delight. From the outside, I though it was a wrap shop. In reality, it was Greek fast food. I had a pork souvlaki (which came with chips on top!) in a pita, but you could get souvlaki by the skewer too. And there was incredibly thick Greek yogurt with homemade fruit conserves, including grape and carrot. I had cherry, but it was a tough choice between that and quince.
Post-show pub at the Great Lost Bear was a little weird. The other end of the table thought our waiter was great. Our end found him incredibly opinionated.
Lakshmi: I'll have this cider.
Waiter: You don't want that one. You want this one.
New_man: No, she doesn't. That's a hopped cider. She'll hate it. She wants the one she asked for.
Most exchanges with him were like that.
Saturday, after a trip to the Goodwill to replace a missing costume item (and a few other things got bought too), we went to Duckfat for lunch. Their specialty is french fries cooked in duck fat and there's a lot of other ducky goodness on the menu. We ended up ordering a bunch of stuff and sharing it amongst the 5 of us. Everything was fantastic. We had green garlic soup with fava beans, a roasted beet salad with duck confit, duck liver and egg on toast (even I had this), a charcuterie platter with "Duck in a Jar", pork terrine (with pistachios), & pork cotechino, and poutine. new_man tried the sour cherry, marscapone, and vanilla gelatto milkshake, of which he generously allowed us all to have a sip. For dessert there were beignets and churros. I would go here again, no question.
Since it was right around the corner, we all met up at the Shipyard Brewery for a tour and tasting. This was basically wasted on me although everyone else had a great time.
Then off to the International Cryptozoological Museum. It was exactly as expected -- quirky, fun, poorly labeled, and occasionally stretching it. Exhibits like theirs make me wish I was independently wealthy, so I could travel around applying my museum education skills to tiny, niche museums (museum education is the department that handles wall text, labels, gallery guides, &c.). We were amused to see this banner that a friend had painted.
Around the corner was The Green Hand and I can never resist a bookstore. I got out lightly with just a 1956 Chinese cookbook by "The Benedictine Sisters of Peking". new_man picked up a number of midcentury cooking pamphlets (my favorite: "The Exciting World of Rice Dishes") and the Trader Vic's bartender's guide.
new_man really wanted to go to J's Oysters, but alas, it was not to be. Post-show they had stopped serving and Sunday morning, they didn't open until noon. Instead, we had breakfast at Bintliff's American Cafe. Everything was so good. No wonder they have been the Phoenix winner for best brunch 8 years in a row. My corned beef hash was a giant pile of shredded corned beef and chunks of potato. I took half of it home. new_man's bagel did not come with thin slices of lox, but a slab of house-smoked salmon. Highly recommended.
And we were home early in the afternoon and reveled in Albert's joy at the return of his people.
We had much fun.
Friday afternoon we had lunch at Whattapita, which put me into ecstasies of delight. From the outside, I though it was a wrap shop. In reality, it was Greek fast food. I had a pork souvlaki (which came with chips on top!) in a pita, but you could get souvlaki by the skewer too. And there was incredibly thick Greek yogurt with homemade fruit conserves, including grape and carrot. I had cherry, but it was a tough choice between that and quince.
Post-show pub at the Great Lost Bear was a little weird. The other end of the table thought our waiter was great. Our end found him incredibly opinionated.
Lakshmi: I'll have this cider.
Waiter: You don't want that one. You want this one.
New_man: No, she doesn't. That's a hopped cider. She'll hate it. She wants the one she asked for.
Most exchanges with him were like that.
Saturday, after a trip to the Goodwill to replace a missing costume item (and a few other things got bought too), we went to Duckfat for lunch. Their specialty is french fries cooked in duck fat and there's a lot of other ducky goodness on the menu. We ended up ordering a bunch of stuff and sharing it amongst the 5 of us. Everything was fantastic. We had green garlic soup with fava beans, a roasted beet salad with duck confit, duck liver and egg on toast (even I had this), a charcuterie platter with "Duck in a Jar", pork terrine (with pistachios), & pork cotechino, and poutine. new_man tried the sour cherry, marscapone, and vanilla gelatto milkshake, of which he generously allowed us all to have a sip. For dessert there were beignets and churros. I would go here again, no question.
Since it was right around the corner, we all met up at the Shipyard Brewery for a tour and tasting. This was basically wasted on me although everyone else had a great time.
Then off to the International Cryptozoological Museum. It was exactly as expected -- quirky, fun, poorly labeled, and occasionally stretching it. Exhibits like theirs make me wish I was independently wealthy, so I could travel around applying my museum education skills to tiny, niche museums (museum education is the department that handles wall text, labels, gallery guides, &c.). We were amused to see this banner that a friend had painted.
Around the corner was The Green Hand and I can never resist a bookstore. I got out lightly with just a 1956 Chinese cookbook by "The Benedictine Sisters of Peking". new_man picked up a number of midcentury cooking pamphlets (my favorite: "The Exciting World of Rice Dishes") and the Trader Vic's bartender's guide.
new_man really wanted to go to J's Oysters, but alas, it was not to be. Post-show they had stopped serving and Sunday morning, they didn't open until noon. Instead, we had breakfast at Bintliff's American Cafe. Everything was so good. No wonder they have been the Phoenix winner for best brunch 8 years in a row. My corned beef hash was a giant pile of shredded corned beef and chunks of potato. I took half of it home. new_man's bagel did not come with thin slices of lox, but a slab of house-smoked salmon. Highly recommended.
And we were home early in the afternoon and reveled in Albert's joy at the return of his people.