Five Fifty-Five

Originally Published in Portland Press Herald around 2010 from past premiere of blog, Food for Thought, C 2002 or Thereabouts

December 16, 2021 / / Restaurants

Originally “Food for Thought” was created as a food diary–a blog with daily entries about my personal focus on local food, farms and restaurants in Portland when the term locavore was new to the lexicon and blogging was a quirky endeavor. It first appeared online at Downeast Magazine in around 2001 and later commissioned by an enterprising editor at the Portland Press Herald where it ran for years until it morphed into the Golden Dish.

For better or worse, the space quickly became focused on restaurant reviews, a shaky moment for some or a stellar  time for others.

It was exciting to eat my way through Portland’s restaurant renaissance.  Suddenly it was no longer just Back Bay Grill and Fore Street as keepers of the flame but rather newcomers like Five Fifty Five, Bandol, Caiola’s, Hugo’s, Cinque Terre, Vignola and Duck Fat joined the group if only to make the old guard strive to be better.

Below are some photos from the past of dining in Portland, most around 2015-2016, as far back as my current Photoshop catalogue goes.

Five-fifty Five back in the day 2015 and much earlier in the early aughts

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Seven Days of Dining: Maine Restaurant Week, Boston Burger and New York Italian

March 7, 2016 / / Discoveries, Restaurants

Few surprises populate the Maine Restaurant Week list of participants in the Portland area.  Absent were members of the so-called hot list of new haunts such as Terlingua, Roustabout and Woodford Food and Beverage.   But do try the East Ender  for one of the best meals around from their $25 MRW prix fixe menu.  Or go to Tempo Dulu for its $45 prix fixe, a relative bargain for this divine restaurant.

MRW east ender front night

These restaurant weeks—as most are  intended around the country in food-focused cities—are a way to invigorate the slower late winter-early spring months to draw diners in.  That means, if you cater to reverse logic, those perennially busy restaurants—not on the list–might be easier to get into without reservations since the bulk of local diners are flocking to MRW members.

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Weekend brunch, Portland: Are you still standing on line to get in?

September 14, 2015 / / Restaurants

From the divine dining annals of  Middle Street (Eventide, Duckfat, East Ender,  et al) to the proprietors on the four corners of Longfellow Square,  the legion of brunch buckaroos waiting on line to get into Portland’s trendiest eateries has spiraled to new highs.  All that craving rush for variations on eggs Benedict or the latest take on tater tots define this culinary madness.

The hot spots, Local 188, Eventide, East Ender and Duckfat

The hot spots, Local 188, Eventide, East Ender and Duckfat

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Central Provisions: Still just about being the best restaurant in Maine

August 28, 2015 / / Restaurants

Deep down in its warped well of vocabulary wisdom the Urban Dictionary defines foodie as “a douchebag who likes food.”  If that’s the case then Portland’s streets are teeming with them, and the general wisdom is for us locals to stay away from our most formidable dining haunts until the turistas all leave in the next 30 to 60 days.  In fact, one local savant confided that he won’t step foot into a place like the revered Central Provisions until the masses go home. Indeed, it may be that of all the new restaurants in our dining world, the one that lives up so supremely to its accolades is the venerable Central Provisions.

The serious look of diners at Central Provisions seated at the dining bar facing the open kitchen; lower right, chef Chris Gould

   The serious look of diners at Central Provisions seated at the dining bar facing the open kitchen; lower right, chef                                                                                                                        Chris Gould

I wasn’t planning to visit there until the fall, but destiny prevailed as a parking spot opened up a few doors away while cruising down Fore Street during the lunch hour earlier this week. I took this as my cue to enter this bastion of gastronomy for a bite of lunch.

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Sunday brunch carries on vividly at many Portland restaurants–but there’s one that’s a real standout!

July 20, 2015 / / Restaurants

The finest culinary minds take the art of cooking to new levels even when the dialectic of simple versus grand is a basic conundrum.   But consider another possibility in our flavor domain: weird—or deliciously weird. It’s one thing to spiral high over an incredibly flavorful dish when the sum of its ingredients are unique. But then there’s the far-out mother of invention taking hold and you, as a diner, encounter something so completely different. These revelations don’t often occur at brunch, the superciliousness of a meal that occurs mostly on Sundays.  The progression of mimosas and bloody’s, all kinds of eggs Benedict and omelets,  pancakes and French toast or just plain old bagels and “lox” (as it’s still known in Manhattan circles) are often mundane and predictable even if comfort-food good.

An old favorite, The Hot Brown

An old Caiola’s favorite, The Hot Brown

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Cafe Society: Portland Patisserie opens to a full house

June 22, 2015 / / Baking & Desserts, Discoveries, Restaurants

The flourish and fanfare that swirled around the opening day of the Portland Patisserie and Grand Cafe last week—with many of the city’s serial foodies assessing and inspecting–doesn’t even begin to show the depths of this French-inspired grand café. Classic breakfast fare like croissants or almond-topped brioche breads are part of the lineup in addition to all the Euro-style pastries and cakes, sablés and cookies, salads, soups, quiche,  crepes and sandwiches on house-baked baguettes or focaccia for lunch or light suppers.  It’s all prepared in the long narrow kitchen in the rear of this corner retail space on Market and Milk streets in the Old Port.

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A classic endures: The infinite pleasures of dining at Five-fifty Five

June 19, 2015 / / Restaurants

You can dine out every night of the week in Portland and confine yourself to the upper echelons of every new restaurant that has opened recently.  This week alone two pivotal establishments have debuted:  the sumptuous Tempo Dulu at the Danforth Inn and Evo, located at the base of the Hyatt Place Hotel on Fore Street.   (The latter is not, however, a “hotel restaurant” as described in a recent post on a food site but rather merely a leased retail space at the streetside corner of the hotel that was transformed into a stunning two-level dining room.)

The dining room at 555 at last year's Christmas dinner; a quiet corner table is a coveted spot in the dining room

The dining room at 555 at last year’s Christmas dinner; a quiet corner table is a coveted spot in the dining room

Still the baubles of Portland’s increasingly frothy world of fine dining are on a magnanimous tear.  More than ever, perhaps, mightn’t it behoove one to pay homage to the core posts of dining in the city, the ones that made our mini-metropolis into a national destination for foodie obsessives?

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