What's missing in Portland

In case you missed what's missing in Portland (and even if you didn't, the Portland Daily Sun didn't exactly highlight these choice bits):

1) Josh Peck and Sue Taylor, Sous Chef Training, Bar Lola: "We could also use a good raw bar that showcases the 15 to 20 types of oysters that you can get here in Maine."

2) Pete Sueltenfuss, line cook at Fore Street: "Late-night dining. This town rolls up its sidewalks at 11."

3) Nicholas Nappi, Chef de Cuisine at Local 188: "Chinese food that hasn't been Americanized. We joke that Portland ought to put a moratorium on Thai restaurants until we got one good dim sum place."

4) Declan McGough, Sous Chef at The Blue Spoon: "My dad works on the waterfront and I know how much seafood comes across so I'm surprised that there aren't more exclusively seafood restaurants, like cevicherias."

5) Karl Okerholm, kitchen manager at El Rayo Taqueria: "We need more affordable places and fewer high-end restaurants."

The Maine Restaurant Scam

No, not Restaurant Week. It starts with a phone call:

The caller claims to be a bail bondsman and says the employee got in a fight with her boyfriend, drove drunk, got in an accident and was arrested for OUI. The caller says the employee is too drunk to come to the phone. The caller then tells the person at the restaurant to wire money to a special account through Walmart to bail the employee out, via WCSH.

Blueberry Harvest

Photo: David Brook Stess

Does Moxie taste like tar?

Robert Dickinson, a Southern guy, gets his hands on one of the country's oldest continuously produced sodas, the polarizing bitter tonic invented by some druggist in Maine and now made in New Hampshire.

At first sip, Moxie is reminiscent of a weak root beer. Not bad, but not memorable either. Then the bitterness takes hold. Like medicine. Like the tar on a telephone pole. Like the sludge at the bottom of the barrel that you’re supposed to just throw away. But Moxie is a complex beast and once the initial shock wears away, the bitterness mellows, and one is left with a bittersweet taste that isn’t so bad and may even quality as, dare I say it…pleasant, via Gastronomica (PDF).

The Court Room

If the Emergency Room and the Quiet Room weren't enough:

Inspired by these events, Harding Smith is rumored to be planning a fourth Portland restaurant: The Courtroom, via The Bollard.

Jordan's Meat

Photograph: Rob Hyde