Sometimes it takes just one dish to restore your faith in a restaurant. That revelation occurred when I stopped in for brunch a few weeks ago at Little Giant. I’d been many times before for dinner, but after it opened last year with a good start, the kitchen eventually lost its way.
A food-savvy friend of mine urged me to try the restaurant again, or as he called it “Our go-to place in the neighborhood.”
With a new chef, Neil Ross, who came on board in early summer, the menu is a compilation of creative, inventive cooking.
The dish that was so inspiring was a brunch entrée of wild mushrooms. These were carefully sautéed to render them tender but still firm, perfectly seasoned—just enough salt and pepper–and a bit of olive oil in a small cast-iron casserole dish. The whole was crowned with a delicious duck egg.
Accompanying the dish was house-made sheep-milk ricotta spread on toasted slices of Night-Moves bread. Certainly a restaurant should bake its own bread, but when a specialty baker such as Kerry Hanney of Night Moves does it so well with her unique technique of using natural leavening and Maine grains to fortify her bread making, it’s nearly impossible to do better. Many other restaurants in Portland such as the ubiquitous Drifters Wife serve Hanney’s bread.
I had a first course (before knowing that I would be eating more bread with my entrée) of Pan Con Tomate—sour-dough bread from Night Moves lathered with a garlicky tomato spread with bottarga, the rich, briny roe from red mullet that crowned this dish so well. The serving was 4 thick slices: order as a dish to share, much too big for one.
I also had a cream of butternut squash soup with kefir and toasted pumpkin seeds; this wasn’t my favorite preparation, the other ingredients overpowering the sweet squash puree.
My next visit will be for dinner where I hope to dig immediately into their luscious plate called short-rib barnacles, anxious to find out how beef flanken retains its barnacles.
Little Giant, 211 Danforth, Portland, ME 207-747-5045 www.littlegiantmaine.com
Rating: Excellent for both dinner and weekend brunch
Ambiance: Cool bistro setting, great bar room and dining room
Service: Thoughtful and professional
Parking: On street
$$$: moderately expensive
