where to eat in Boston and Portland, Maine?

one Portland night, more Boston time.

When will you be in Boston?

did a thread a few weeks ago so this may be redundant.

Oct 3-6 Boston, Portland Oct 2.

in Portland, saw Central Provisions but won’t take reservations. What about Union?

I ate at Union for the first time a few weeks ago and didn’t enjoy it at all. It’s a hotel restaurant and feels like it.

Here are my current Portland recommendations:

  1. Central Provisions really is worth trying to get in. Great food and in my mind the poster-child for the current Portland dining scene

  2. Emilitsa is a fantastic Greek restaurant. It’s somewhat high-end rather than traditional Greek comfort food and has a good Greek wine list. It’s probably my favorite restaurant in town

  3. Scales is a relatively new seafood place on the water owned by the Fore Street people. I’ve been three times and the food has been fantastic. Some hit or miss service, but that seems to be a problem in Portland more generally (my theory is that the restaurants per capita is so high that there simply are not enough competent wait staff to go around)

  4. If you love oysters and raw seafood, I recommend going to Eventide. It’s a smaller seafood place owned by (and next door to) the Hugo’s people, and everything they serve is impeccable.

  5. Boda is a great Thai “street food” inspired restaurant. Good for sharing dishes

  6. Tempo Dulu is pricey. But’s it’s the most interesting restaurant to open up in Portland in the past two years. It’s Southeast Asian – primarily Indonesian/Malaysian. It also has great cocktails

  7. Among the classics, Hugo’s and Fore Street are both still really good (I prefer Hugo’s), but my favorite “special night out” place is Back Bay Grill.

I almost forgot: for some of the best sushi you can get anywhere in America, go to Miyake. It’s better than anything I ever found in 7 years in San Francisco.

Alan if you are interested in meeting some locals are you up for an OL 10/5 or 6. We can do Troquet if your lodging in Boston, the burbs are easy as well.

wow, thanks all. Have to pass on off lines, reluctantly, it’s a vacay w the wife and not a wine trip. Next time!

Alan - still head to Troquet for. Dinner. You will not be disappointed.

Troquet in Boston?

YES, Chris is a member here

Alan, glad to see you’re getting to the real “Portland”. (People on this board post as if there’s only one…and it’s not in Maine.)

There are lots of great places in Portland…haute, as mentioned here…and less haute…ie, fun places with really good food. In my view, the food scene up there all “started” with Fore Street and their innovative and local, simply prepared cuisine. It opened in 1996 and is still as good, though the value might not be as good. I’ve been there many times and never been disappointed. Since it’s the grandaddy of restaurants there and uniquely Portland/Maine, if I had one meal that’s where I would go, for sure. Good wine list, relatively speaking, too. As Jay T. says above, the “classic” place that really hasn’t lost a step in all this time.

My two cents.

in Portland, will try Fore Street though no available reservations. Boda looks great–open past MN. Central Provisions also takes no reservations.

Clam Box and Clam Shack look good.

In Boston, Bisq, Shepard, Troquet, and Giulia all look good.

Doing my research. Thanks all.

For Portland, ME, sit at the bar either at Fore Street or Central Provisions. Piccolo is very good Italian, and Drifter’s Wife is inventive American attached to a pretty cool wine shop (disclaimer= they buy some of our wines so I might be slightly biased). I’ve heard Roustabout is very good, and for local good solid food Lolita is a good choice. Eventide, Hugo’s, Duckfat, all rock as well. Get some killer coffee at Speckled Ax or Tandem. I’ve heard good things about Vinland too, but still haven’t been.

blueberry pie at Two Fat Cats supposed to be good–any opinions?

It’s really difficult to make a bad “Maine wild blueberry” pie. (Wild Maine blueberries are wonderful…a separate animal from the plumper “high bush” ones we all get in the markets in summer.

My only experience at Fat Cats was to go in and look at the pricelist…it comes very highly recommended by an old friend from Philadelphia who has a house on one of the islands off of Portland (he once was the Phila. Inquirer’s wine writer in the '80s.) He is usually right on with his reccos and has gotten to know Portland well in the last 5-6 years since buying their home.

People do have good luck getting into Fore St. My sister in law (who knows Portland well, too) was there last month with her husband–without a reservation. The bar is never reserved, I think.

The bakery under Fore St. (Standard Baking) also has wonderful baked goods, though I don’t think they make pies or cakes. Breads, killer croissants and lots of sweets and savories.I really like their walnut/raisin bread. Owned by Fore St. owners.

I think Michel’s recommendations are mostly good except for Vinland. We’ve been twice and will not be returning. The only reason to go is the gimmick. The actual food is bad, as is the service and the atmosphere. And don’t get me started on the cocktails.

I haven’t been, but I’ve heard good things, so I am surprised to read this. What happened?

The first time we went (May 2015) was actually quite good (except for atmosphere, which was and remains quite disappointing). I wrote a review of it at the time, which you can find in the EE forum, although I think I was grading a bit on a curve. Nonetheless, we enjoyed ourselves and had some very good food at a reasonable price.

The second time we went this Spring, Vinland had gotten quite a bit more expensive. It’s now playing in the Hugo’s/Fore Street/Back Bay Grill price range, and it is nowhere near as good as any of those places, not to mention at least a dozen other places in town that are less expensive. The dishes we ordered were surprisingly similar to those the year before but executed less well, and our waitress seemed like a robot who was reciting the same locavorean script as before but with a few misfiring circuits. On flavor alone, I thought it was fine. But it also seemed like almost every dish would have been better if the restaurant didn’t limit itself to hyper-local ingredients. Literally nothing was exceptional this time around, and a few things were a huge step down from before – particularly the monkfish dish, which, as a composition of flavors, was quite bad. Meanwhile, my cocktail was disgusting. They recommended their version of a Negroni, but which used some sort of locally made liqueur (I think it was made from beets) in place of Sweet Vermouth and something else instead of Campari. It tasted nothing like a Negroni. That would have been ok if it was otherwise good, but this cocktail tasted strangely sour and smelled almost rotten.

I’ll still concede that if you are interested in the hyper-local, gluten-free thing for their own sake, Vinland is interesting. But if I judge Vinland according to the same standards I would any other restaurant in Portland, I’d choose not to eat there again. Which I do, so I won’t.

Oh wow, good to know, thanks, but sorry you had a bad experience.