Sur-Lie | The Golden Dish

The Week That Was Restaurant Week: Sur-Lie Shines

March 16, 2019 / John Golden / Restaurants

As soon as we walked in, that unmistakable sweet smell of success wafted through the room on this Restaurant Week night when Sur-Lie was seriously aglow with diners looking very pleased to be there.

We chose Sur Lie as our one pick from the restaurant week roster because most on the list had been visited frequently before; others like Lio (not on the list) I hope to return to again after a lackluster first visit. Some of the newer restaurants in town were not represented.

I’ve always liked Sur-Lie, and its prix fixe menu at $35 was a 4-course affair with lots of tantalizing dishes. From the regular menu my favorite is the sweet-pea humus, which wasn’t offered on the special prix fixe.

Center: salmon; top, clockwise: the bar, black-eyed peas, oysters, empanadas

Act Three: Congress Squared’s new chefs are doing it so right with a sophisticated, highly conceived small-plate menu

February 5, 2016 / John Golden / Restaurants

This is not a traditional restaurant review but rather it’s intended to report on the newly invigorated menu at Congress Squared at the Westin Portland Harborview. Last Thursday night a dinner was prepared for press and industry folk to sample the new dishes with chefs Brian Anderson (executive chef) and Elisha (pronounced Elijah) Irland (chef de cuisine) running the show.

Clockwise: C2″s banquettes; chef Brian Anderson (right) and attendees at the press and industry dinner

Each dish—and there were many—were killer efforts that the kitchen team produced with suavity and assuredness. The smoked duck breast, for example, over a cunningly devised puree of rosemary with dots of roasted grapes and garlic confit created an arsenal of flavor that put the whole chorus of fine cooking on a high note. The sweet-smoky duck breast soaking up the vivaciousness of the rosemary puree underneath was further complimented by the umami of sweetly pungent pairing of grapes and garlic confit.

Smoked duck breast with rosemary

The week that was: dining out in New York, Boston and Portland

January 15, 2016 / John Golden / Uncategorized

Regular posts on food and dining will resume next week, but I nonetheless enjoyed a busy, satisfying week of food and drink traveling from New York, Boston and last stop, Portland.

But is the dining establishment having a few hiccups in this part of the world or is our food nation as glorious as ever? Perhaps there’s no appeal or reverence for haughty antics of some chefs and restaurateurs. In particular I refer to a pivotal review in the New York Times (see review ) that didn’t give high marks to one of the great restaurants in the country, New York’s Per Se, where dinner for two can summarily cost $1,000.

New York’s fabled dining rooms: clockwise: 11 Madison Park; Le Cirque; 21 Club and La Grenouille

And in a recent Boston Globe article, however, on the region’s explosive dining scene, the writer worried about Metropolitan Boston’s ability to absorb the glut of restaurants that cater to a dining patronage in the millions. Well, where does that put Portland, a tenth of the size of Boston, with the flush of its dining- out frenzy?

Brunch that gratifies: new, novel and/or noteworthy

September 21, 2015 / John Golden / Restaurants, Uncategorized

French toast made with corn bread? A new twist on eggs Benedict as though an old faithful really needs twisting and shaking? Sometimes it’s the tried and true that is the most satisfying. Then, again, when you experience a dish that’s truly novel that’s cause for culinary celebration, too.

I made the happy error of mixing up my brunch dates thinking that yesterday—Sunday—was the date for a brunch I was invited to. I looked up the email invitation and saw that it was for next Sunday.

Piccolo’s dining bar and wine rack

But I was all psyched for brunch without a destination. Though my favorite spots like Caiola’s or Sur-Lie beckoned I decided to go to someplace I’d not been to in a while.

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

September 14, 2015 / John Golden / 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

Sur-Lie sizzles with delicious food at weekday lunch and Sunday brunch

August 31, 2015 / John Golden / Restaurants

In the pantheon of Portland’s lunch and brunch jungle Sur-Lie is the sleeper in the group. In fact it receives so little attention when it should be a bold-face contender. They ‘ve already established their might at dinner, but I urge all you foraging diners to take a turn down Free Street for innovative food from their lunch and Sunday brunch menus.

The dining room is flooded in sunlight at lunch and brunch

Chef Emil Rivera’s particular sense of taste delivers some of the best cooking in town. At lunch, for instance, the prix fixe $15 4-course menu packs quite a wallop of flavor and value; I love the idea that you can walk out with a dessert packet to take back to your office or nibble on as you walk down the street. See the menu below.

The lunch menu served Tuesday to Saturday; the dining bar

On Sunday, however, I had the chance to experience their food when I stopped in for a late brunch around 2:00 PM. My original plan was to visit the new OCHO—Otto Pizza’s food iteration to launch burrito mania only to see a sign on the door saying in part, “Closed…to collect ourselves, regain our bearings and figure out how to better serve you.”

The 5 by 10 service counter at OCHO

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

August 28, 2015 / John Golden / 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

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.

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

August 17, 2015 / John Golden / 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

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.

Where to eat now, where to go next and a few dining conundrums in Portland

August 10, 2015 / John Golden / Discoveries, Restaurants

After a scintillating dinner at Tempo Dulu Saturday night, one of nearly bacchanalian proportions, everywhere else I ate last week was so tame (though pretty good) by comparison. (Shown on the intro page is mixologist’s Trevin Hutchins Wayang Cocktail)

A trio of desserts at Tempo Dulu

Last night’s options, however, were a mixed bag of where to eat since many favorite places are closed on Sundays, a mistake perhaps if restaurateurs are looking for the big dollars from the brigade of tourists now everywhere in Portland.

I considered going to Sur-Lie, but they close down for Sunday dinner after serving their very popular brunch earlier in the day.

Chef Matt Ginn’s terrific lamp preparation at Evo enjoyed on earlier occasionis

Ebb and Flow, on teeming Commercial Street, is also closed on Sundays and I haven’t been there in a long while. Same for Tiqa. Keeping with the growing Mediterranean theme gaining popularity, I considered stopping at Evo but parking anywhere in the congested Old Port that night was difficult.

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

July 20, 2015 / John Golden / 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 Caiola’s favorite, The Hot Brown

The Week That Was Restaurant Week: Sur-Lie Shines

Act Three: Congress Squared’s new chefs are doing it so right with a sophisticated, highly conceived small-plate menu

The week that was: dining out in New York, Boston and Portland

Brunch that gratifies: new, novel and/or noteworthy

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

Sur-Lie sizzles with delicious food at weekday lunch and Sunday brunch

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

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

Where to eat now, where to go next and a few dining conundrums in Portland

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

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