Portland Food Heads

This marks the 8th edition of Sunday Evening, and could perhaps be seen as a welcomed occasion for a temporary break in format. Without delving into too long of a story, Lynn and I had intentions (and tickets) to be at Maine Fare's "The Whole Hog" event at Saltwater Farm in Lincolnville yesterday afternoon. A failed break pad and busted caliper piston later, we ended up helpless on the side of the road in Brunswick instead. No charcuterie, no whole hog.

I have to admit that it's pretty hard to find anything positive in losing $150 worth of tickets to car failure, but yesterday turned into somewhat of an interesting day. Obviously we needed another plan, and it turned into my mom picking us up from a garage in Falmouth. We agreed to take a ride with her since the weather was so nice, and ended up down near the never-ending carnival that is Old Orchard Beach: loathed by locals, adored by French Canadian tourists.

While the living circus itself is surely something to stay away from, the area that surrounds it reminds me of my childhood in Maine, and the one thing above all else that brings back memories is the other side of Maine food: shrimp rolls, fried clams and onion rings. I practically grew up eating the stuff (having lived a five-minute walk from The Lobster Shack in Cape Elizabeth for the better part of my life), and even though I may shun it these days in the name of "fine cooking" so to speak, there's no denying your roots.

And so we passed Bayley's Seafood Restaurant, right on the outskirts of the beach scene on Pine Point Rd. I distinctly remember taking trips down to OOB when I was a kid and stopping here for a shrimp roll, which came chock full of shrimp and cost only $2.95. The price went up a dollar, but the only other difference between the shrimp roll of old and the one I had yesterday is that it used to come wrapped in tin foil instead of a cardboard sleeve. It tasted exactly the same as it did when I was ten years old, new to Maine, and certainly new to the concept of a seafood shack. It's comforting - almost eerie, in fact - to know that after nearly 15 years, very little has changed in this little neck of the woods.

My mom has always been fond of these kinds of places, and said she knew of an even better one down the road - Salty Bay Seafood, on Jones Creek Dr. in Scarborough. I figured, at this point, there's nothing stopping this from becoming a nice outdoor meal overlooking a lazy river feed itself into the nearby ocean. Why not pick up a bottle of wine and sit down for some more "Maine" food? That question is of course rhetorical, but I will answer it anyway by saying that there is nothing like drinking white wine out of a Styrofoam cup on a plastic picnic table with hoards of bugs flying aimlessly around.

The shrimp roll from Bayley's was great, but it's tough to beat a nice portion of fried clams, coleslaw and onion rings. This truly is quintessential Maine food; greasy, terribly bad for you and absolutely delicious. The bugs were so bad that Lynn had to prematurely end her short-lived relationship with the bowl of clam chowder she had ordered, as it soon became a dish you'd find on Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern. I sucked down 80% of the bottle of wine in approximately 20 minutes, and it started to rain. It rekindled more memories from my childhood (minus the drinking) than I care to admit, and turned out to be one of the more satisfying dinners I've had in a while.

The real title of this post should be Maine - The Way Life Could Be. As I spend most of my dining experiences in the low-lit rooms of places like Bresca, Bar Lola and Evangeline, it's easy to lose touch with the "other" side of Maine food. While I'd venture to say that Portland has some of the best food in New England - and I'll bet I could find hundreds of people that agree with me - there will always be a place in my heart for the "other." After all, it's the greasy, fried seafood that most tourists come to Maine for; not the excellent, upscale restaurants that Portland has to offer.

~E~