LFK

Loving LFK: Lunch, Dinner and Sunday Brunch are well served at Portland’s most original watering hole

October 23, 2015 / / Restaurants

Portland leads the pack for chefs and restaurateurs to strut like superstars, waving their tickets to birth and background in frothy good will. That leaves a place like LFK  in precarious limelight, its firmament aflicker in irreverent ways. Like the naughty boy acting out, it defies convention in so doing what it does so well: hosting a nightly asylum of imbibing foodies in nocturnal repose–a smattering of bohemians in the midst of high gastronomy all around it.

It's blessed with a bird's eye view across Longfellow Square; diners at the bar

It’s blessed with a bird’s eye view across Longfellow Square; diners at the bar

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LFK: At Sunday brunch it’s all about a very winning heap of homemade hash

October 19, 2015 / / Discoveries, Restaurants

There’s a lot of good corned beef hash served at Portland restaurants–especially those with brunch menus.  In fact, you can get hash on any day where breakfast is served—from hotel dining rooms to dives and everything else in between.

LFK's delicious curried corned beef hash

LFK’s delicious curried corned beef hash

Hot Suppa, Marcy’s, Becky’s, Local 188, Front Room, to name a few have admirable dishes of corned beef hash.

But the winner for the most unusual is cooked up at LFK.  The bar/restaurant follows an interesting concept of offering two plate sizes for many of its dishes.  Whatever size you choose you get a heaping helping of hash in the small ($9) or large ($16) portion size. Unless you’re feeling voracious the small  portion is  plenty big filling an 8-inch round dinner plate to the rim.

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Little Tap House: Portland’s reigning gastro pub at the corner of High and Spring streets

October 16, 2015 / / Restaurants

Little Tap House has grown into a full-fledged neighborhood meeting place that serves not only craft cocktails and local brews but a decently satisfying menu of creative pub grub.  The night we were there earlier this week the place was literally packed to the rafters.  It had great vibes and atmosphere as a thriving popular pub.

From the young and restless to savvy Westenders, the crowd is always congenial

From the young and restless to savvy Westenders, the crowd is always congenial

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Bet on Boda for great food–if they’re up to snuff

September 4, 2015 / / Restaurants

Sometimes it depends on the dish you choose from a restaurant menu that makes or breaks the meal, and that was my recent experience at Boda, still one of the most popular Asian restaurants in the Longfellow Square dining loop.

Boda's bar captures a lively crowd from 20-somethings on up

Boda’s bar captures a lively crowd from 20-somethings on up

Getting in to this dining darling is not always easy as lines form out the door every night of the week.  When I arrived on Tuesday night there were plenty of parking spaces in the adjoining Joe’s parking area reserved for the restaurant.  But that belied the activity within. The place was packed.  (Ponder this: what happens  when the parking lot behind Joe’s is rehabbed into a high-rise rental and parking is lost?)

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