Petite Jacqueline

Foodie-Nation Status Continues Strong in Greater Portland Where Diversity Reigns

October 17, 2016 / / Uncategorized

What’s increasingly making Portland a worldly source of provocative dining and a contender to maintain its foodie-nation status is the diversity of what there is to eat and where to find it whether dining in or dining out.  It comes up in the most ordinary places from vendors at a farmers market to a soup swap in a barn in Yarmouth to a fine meal on Munjoy Hill to a French-bistro inspired dinner in the Old Port. It makes the food lore of the daily meal so delicious.

Crystal Springs Farmers Market

Crystal Springs Farmers Market

While Portland has one of the biggest farmers markets in terms of number of vendors, Brunswick beats the odds with its contribution of buying local because it has market days 3 times a week: On the Green in downtown Brunswick on Tuesdays and Fridays and  on Saturday down the road at Crystal Springs on Pleasant Hill Road.

Brunswick's On the Green market

Brunswick’s On the Green market

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Act II: The Curtain Rises on Portland’s Beloved Petite Jacqueline

June 24, 2016 / / Restaurants

Briefly noted is the opening of Petite Jacqueline in their new location at Market and Milk streets where owners Michelle and Steve Corry reconfigured their Portland Patisserie into two spaces.  The café is ramped down significantly, but the great pastries from pastry chef Catherine Cote-Eliot are served at both the café and the restaurant.  The rest of the space is devoted fully to dining, and the look is chic and divine.

PJ's new look at the bar and at table

PJ’s new look at the bar and at table

You wouldn’t recognize it from the original café space since the long room is now chock-a-block with white-clothed banquettes and tables with the fabulous floor to ceiling windows overlooking the picturesque cobblestone portal of the Portland Regency across the street.

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Weekend grazing: from tapas, to haute fare to one of the best lobster rolls, Maine remains the splendid table everywhere

August 17, 2015 / / Restaurants

Grazing is a great way to experience several restaurants in one fell swoop, torching your testbeds into fiery submission as you go from one to the other for splendid dining.   This was the course I followed starting on Friday evening. What ensued was the progression of  two dining establishments to create  the evening meal in which the new world met the old and a weekend to follow with multiple ports of call in the offing.

Sur-Lie presents an inventive but very approachable modern-day menu of small plates done with utter creativity and style.  The second stop was Back Bay Grill, where more traditional techniques and fare—done superbly—offered great counterpoint.

The respective bar rooms for dining at Sur Lie and Back Bay Grill

The respective bar rooms for dining at Sur Lie and Back Bay Grill

First order of business was to order a drink made by Sur-Lie’s great bartender, Sam Babcock.  I proceeded to have my favorite dish at Sur Lie– the sweet pea hummus.  It’s presented in a big white bowl that contains the brightest puree, almost blindingly green from the freshness of the peas rendered into a luxuriously silken dip.  Chef Emil Rivera—whose cooking gets better and better to be, at times, absolutely wonderful– floats the flavors of lemon and mint that capture the sublime texture and flavor of the sabayon, which tops the hummus like  whipped cream on a sundae.

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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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