Tiqa

Portland Dining 2015: The Top Ten Newcomers who are continuing to make the city a destination for innovative dining

December 25, 2015 / / Restaurants

It’s been another banner year in 2015 for Portland area restaurants, with the best and brightest showing remarkable menus and innovative cooking, giving the birth of cool cuisine vitality.

Lobster tartine at The Honey Paw

Lobster tartine at The Honey Paw

While last year was all about small plates, 2015 mixed it up with both small and large plate menus in the mix. Of the 20 or so new establishments in our region, only 10 really made the grade as being special.  Union, Isa, East Ender, Tiqa, Roustabout, Evo, Tempo Dulu, Terlingua, The Honey Paw and even Cape Elizabeth chimed in with Rudy’s in the heart of that coastal suburb.

The spectacular space at Evo serves divine Mediterranean/Middle Eastern fare with chef Matt Ginn at the helm

The spectacular space at Evo serves divine Mediterranean/Middle Eastern fare with chef Matt Ginn at the helm

What was distinctive about these newcomers was the Big Money spent on décor, creating unique, often luxurious interiors beyond the traditional post and beam and brick confines that Maine restaurants favor.

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Two very unusual cookbooks on the shelves now, and a third, Rachel Ray’s latest (her 22nd book) merits attention

November 4, 2015 / / Discoveries, Recipes

Two totally different cookbooks are worth looking at because the collections are so unusual. The first is from southern chef John Currence, a James Beard winner and his book. Pickles, Pigs and Whiskey.  He owns several restaurants in the south, most notably his City Grocery in Oxford, Mississippi. He grew up in New Orleans, but his ideologies span the culinary globe.  Consider this bon mot: ‘Where there is rosemary…let there be lemon.”

Pickles, Pigs and Whiskey by John Currence

Pickles, Pigs and Whiskey by John Currence (photo of book cover)

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A touch of the exotic defines Tiqa’s weekend brunch menu

September 28, 2015 / / Restaurants

In the quest for interesting weekend brunch menus, Tiqa’s unique lineup of dishes is worth exploring.  At other times, the vast rooms fill up in the evening hours with sundry assemblages of partygoers, from wedding soirees to large-scale groups dining out. Even the outdoor patio is outfitted for winter dining with towering heat lamps ready to ward off the chill.  Management plans to keep it open through the holidays.  Though I think they’d have to supply more than heat and fire pits; chinchilla throws and muffs might be more like it especially as winter winds whoosh off the harbor.

Eggs on focaccia with spiced potatoes; chocolate babka and walnut spinach fatayeh

Eggs on focaccia with spiced potatoes; chocolate babka and walnut spinach fatayeh

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All’s Well that ends well at ‘The Well’–a bonafide farm-to-table dining experience

September 25, 2015 / / Restaurants

While the Portland restaurant scene verges on being a dead ringer for Brooklyn’s finest, Cape Betty across the bridge has few contenders unless you consider the new and very popular Rudy’s.  But then go a little west of the ocean, to the verdant farm fields in this tony Cape Elizabeth neighborhood and you’ll be smack dab at Jordan’s Farm, with its most revered tenant, like the star sharecropper, Chef Jason Williams and The Well.

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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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