portland me restaurants

[katmas]

I am going to Portland for a long weekend and looking for suggestions for reasonable priced restaurants for seafood, breakfast, and bistros. Any ideas for live music for people over 40 or a place for dancing and a drink?
Thanks,
katmas

[cathpah]

For seafood, I think your best bet is street & company, which specializes in seafood, or 555, which is excellent all around and always have a few seafood options. Neither of these will be overly cheap, but both are worth every penny. you'll spend just as much going to fore st, and while it was a longtime chow favorite, recent reviews, and my recent experiences have been less-than-special.

Duckfat is a great lunch spot. not to be missed.

For breakfast, you can dine with locals and fisherman (if you get there early enough!) at Becky's, but it's relatively standard fare (aside from their great sausage) but done well.

My favorite breakfast spot would be Bintliff's. Their lunch menu is superb as well. Good home cooking-type meals, often done a little different (like the phyllo dough reuben). Bintliff's is across from the post office.

[ahem]

I'm sure you'll find a decent place for seafood but I wasn't thrilled with Gilbert's (on Commercial Street) - locals and tourists go there & you'll see your usual choices of fried/broiled seafoods & cream based chowders. Breakfast - go to Hot Suppa on Congress Street - organic 7 grain porridge, sausage and gravy, & eggs benedict. Authentic Vietnamese cuisine (complete with tripe in your pho) - Huong's on Cumberland Ave.

[eeejo]

yes yes to duckfat lunch; front room, street & caiola's dinner. add fore street to that list. blue spoon is such a lovely place with great prices and service but our meal there was a teeny bit underseasoned. evangeline is a French place that was serving a very moderately priced prix-fixe on Monday nights; I haven't been yet and I hope they're still doing it! also, yosaku is a great japanese restaurant with good prices and yummy fish. bar lola would be a nice place for a cocktail. arabica for coffee.

[MOOKIECOOKIE]

Wow... I must have hit the blue spoon on a bad night because everything that i had was overseasoned and the food was ok at best. we first got pancetta wrapped dates that took about 25 minutes. when they came out they were rock-hard and boring. just three burnt dates on a white plate. then for mains we got portuguese stew that tasted like salty canned tomato product and somthing else that was so bad i can't recall. i do remember a great brussel sprout gratin that was terribly overseasoned. nothing that night seemed really inspired... it was just kinda blah...

[eeejo]

what a bummer. when i cook, i know that overseasoning is worse than underseasoning, but i'm such a salt-head that as a diner, i tend to be more accepting of a too-salty meal than about a bland one. sounds like they hit both ends of the spectrum for you. our blue spoon meal wasn't great but the service was so gracious and the space so pleasant that i would still give it another chance.

[dogwood]

Silly's is a favorite of mine

[StevensAve]

Portland has a number of great places reasonably priced: Seafood - Street & Co. and Front Room; Breakfast - Becky's Diner; and, Bistros - Blue Spoon and Caiola's. Happy eating.

[chrisandbetsyc]

Duckfat....freaking amazing.

[bigduddyd]

Concurred. Duckfat poutine for life.

http://www.duckfat.com/menu.html

[Northender]

Duckfat is amazing. Worth the drive from Boston for lunch there.

I had areal nice dinner at the Grill Room on Exchange Street last time I was in Portland and i am sure you will get many votes for Fore street which I think does live up to the hype.

[tunamelt]

Enjoy Portland! It's a great town.

I haven't eaten dinner there often enough to have good suggestions, but for lunch I would highly recommend a place called Federal Spice, which is right downtown and has yummy sandwiches, wraps, quesadillas, etc. It's quick, inexpensive, filling, and (in many cases) healthy.

TM

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Federal Spice
225 Federal St, Portland, ME 04101

[MangiaMuse]

I have loved Federal Spice for many years, but my last visit, last week, was very bad. I don't know if it was an off night or what, but my daughter and I were disappointed. I hope it was a blip on the screen.