The point is, can you get into any restaurant in Portland on the spur of the moment? No. From persnickety websites to various ways of reserving a table, it’s not so easy. Online is encouraged, but in person or phone discouraged. Tuesday has become the new Monday, both of which have been the day that most restaurants are closed. Then there’s the Wednesday dilemma–some closed, a few open–where dining out can only take place Thursday to Sunday. Dining tables inside or out are precious few to reserve. If your favorite restaurants are serving at full capacity, where every allowable table is ready to be booked, the restaurant’s staff may still be limited, thus affecting the easy sway that restaurants used to enjoy–yes, I’ll say it–“pre-pandemic.”
The perfect Negroni at EVO
One place that I often visit when I don’t feel like cooking is a neighborhood eatery (Munjoy Hill) that specializes in pizza. The problem is you can’t call up to order a pie. It must be done online. Recently I walked in since I was in the neighborhood to place my order for pizza pie. I was told it must be done online. (Why not in person?) I answered that I have problems with the website, filtered by TOAST, the popular format for online ordering. Sometimes you hit it just right and can breeze through the process. But doing it on a cell phone is not effortless if downright impossible. It just it doesn’t work that well. I spent 5 minutes once looking for the menu on which to place my check mark to order.
So when I walked in I told the lone person sitting at a table in the empty restaurant that I had problems ordering online. She shot back, “Well, it we don’t get you now you’ll just have to try another time and we’ll do without your business.”
I vowed never to go back because of such ridiculousness. I’m sure I’ll be criticized for this. And I ask myself why wouldn’t I have gone to Monte’s, a five minute drive, to get the best pizza in Portland? And you can call it in or walk in!
Monte’s Roman style pizza
Here are the current choice of restaurants where I had dinner on the spur of the moment, meaning I dined on the same day of my phone call to the restaurants or even just walked in. Chaval, one of my favorite places in Portland, is gearing up for full-time inside dining. The patio is great but sometimes you want to dine at a table with AC and no bugs.
Chaval’s famous coq au vin
You’d never had known that EVO suffered any kind of pandemic loss. The place was hopping, packed. I’ve been there when the igloos were up, but now it all happens inside in their dining room, the brilliant design use of a serpentine bar that accommodates everyone. I hate the upstairs room. Who wants to be in Siberia? All the action takes place at either the bar or the counter seating along the windows that overlook one of the prettiest sections of the Old Port.
EVO
EVO Oysters
The food was fantastic and the show of watching the chefs at work was pure food theatre. From the chick-pea fries to a fantastic dish of oysters on the half-shell splattered with buttermilk and basil. Wow! The salmon on a bed of tomatoes and white beans was terrific. And for the two of us we managed to keep the bill at $75 including a few drinks.
Isa is closed on Tuesdays . That has always been the case. But any other day is prime. There are fewer tables inside than before and fewer seats at the bar. Still we were able to walk in to enjoy the easy ambiance that’s always been at play. The patio could have been an option but we preferred the air conditioned dining room to eating outside in the sweltering heat of a mid June evening. And where else can you get steel-head trout from the Hudson? It was on the menu and a fine choice indeed.
Isa
The Blue Spoon is another restaurant in my neighborhood. Sometimes they’ve closed their doors for no apparent reason. But for the most part they’re open. I’ve dined on their very pretty patio, perched on a quiet section of upper Congress St, close enough to the prom to feel the bay breezes from the beautiful patio setting along this quiet part of Congress Street. Great cooking, a mix of comfort and bistro, a combination that’s so easy to like. The dining room inside is actually a great space, like the old-fashioned bistro style restaurant that used to be everywhere before the big deals arrived to crown our city restaurant citadel.
I’d been anxious to return to the Front Room and so we went only to meet a sign on the door that said the restaurant was closed because of unforeseen problems. We returned another day, hoping to grab two chairs at the bar. It was full and we were offered the last two-top on the patio. Again it’s perched along Upper Congress Street, even closer to Casco Bay than Blue Spoon and you can pretend that you here the water lapping at the shoreline.
Still the best deviled eggs in town and the best roast chicken, Need I say more?
The Front Room
Except that the big surprise was Ruski’s Tavern (212 Danforth St.), where the bar room was fairly empty at 6 PM, even for this inimitable dive bar. If you want to mingle with a rough and tumble crowd of locals they’ll arrive soon enough. We were there for the cheeseburger platter, which in the old days we used to call a Burger Deluxe. Meaning French fries sand a little thimble of Cole slaw with the burger. There were no onion rings that evening (the trick is for two to order one platter with fries and another with onion rings) but as the hamburger was brought to our table you could get the smell of char-grilled meat even before it was placed in front of us. Still, I’m happy to report, it’s the best burger in town.
Ruski’s cheeseburger with fries, now $15, a big increase from last year’s value
