Archive | July, 2012

Maine Cubed: Portland- Duckfat

17 Jul

Sadly, all good things must come to an end, and so it was that we found ourselves back in Portland for lunch on our voyage back to the airport. We were racing to an appointment to do a tasting and tour at Allagash Brewery but decided we had just enough time to squeeze in a stop at Duckfat, a sandwich shop (specializing in fries and panini) that had been recommended to me by a few different people.

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The restaurant is small with a number of high top tables and bars around the kitchen to sit.

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It has a quirky personality with tiny pictures in the window that looks into the kitchen.

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And notice the magnetic poetry on the wall in the background of the below picture.

We ordered the fries with the truffle ketchup and boy oh boy were these good.  Perfectly crisp (thanks to the duck fat, I’m sure) and why I haven’t run into about a million versions of truffle ketchup to date, I do not know… but it was delightful.

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We kept an eye on time and quickly realized it was not on our side, so the waitress packed up our sandwiches to go.  We wound up gobbling them down in the car.

Mike got the pork belly with carrot, radish, pickled onion, cilantro & thai chili mayo. I took a mayo-less nibble and it was quite nice.

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I got the duck confit with caramelized miso mayo, bok choy & sweet onion. This was sensational. The duck was so tender and seasoned just right, and that caramelized miso mayo and onion added a perfect compliment of sweetness.

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Overall, I really enjoyed Duckfat. It’s unlike any sandwich shop I’ve ever been to and we really enjoyed it. I just recommend leaving yourself more than a few minutes to eat there!

Total Nom Points: 7 out of 10

I was sad to leave Maine (as I always am) but I’m excited to say that we’ll probably be going back next month to explore wedding venues!

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Maine Cubed: Boothbay Harbor- Mine Oyster

12 Jul

After our lovely whale watch and an incredible visit to Pemaquid Point (where we got engaged!), we decided to celebrate at The World is Mine Oyster, which received a write-up in the brand new Eater Maine. It was a Monday night and pre-season, but the sign said there was live music and we loves ourselves some oysters!

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We were celebrating, so we ordered 2 of every oyster they had (they were out of many, unfortunately).

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We made our way around the delicious tray and wound up especially liking the Glidden Point oysters (which came in 3 sizes!) from the Damariscotta River. And they weren’t lying about the “Jumbo” size! Check out these beauties.

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We were still a little hungry, so we got a basket of fried shrimp. We were expecting big shrimp, but these tiny morsels were fantastic. 

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They came with waffle fries, which Mike created quite the amazing concoction with fried shrimp on top of the waffle fries with some tarter and cocktail sauces.

Genius.

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Mine Oyster was a nice stop and a good celebration with all those oysters.  The menu is heavy on fried seafood, but everything we had was very good. It’s tough to judge a place based on raw food and fried shrimp, but I would say it’s a good choice if you’re in the area, but not necessarily a destination to pursue if you’re not close.

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BoozeCarriage.com Review

10 Jul

I really enjoy blogging here at NYCNomNom, but free booze certainly makes it that much better!  BoozeCarriage contacted me with an offer to try out their service with a $50 credit.  Couldn’t turn that down! So now I will live blog the experience…

I browsed their website and first found it strange that wine and liquor were separate from beer. I checked out the beer page first and found they had an okay selection, with about a dozen craft beers on their list. None of them tickled my fancy, so I switched over to the liquor/wine page and dove into White: France.

Low and behold, two Vouvrays on the list! Our favorite type of wine is quite rare, so this was a lovely surprise.  I clicked on each one and sadly, there is no information about the wines. This seems like a great place to put in a quick blurb and some tasting notes. Hopefully they are working on that! Oh and no vintage? That’s a bit strange.

Prices seem reasonable, with most in the $12-$20 range and one coming in at $24.99.

Into cart: Remy Pannier Vouvray for $12.99

Went to try a Search and realized they had no Search.  Not loving the UI of the site or information therein, but hopefully this is a work in progress. I see that they have a way to rank it by review, but there are no reviews yet, so I have to assume I’m seeing a beta version.

Now to see if they have Russian River Chardonay.  White: California…

57 options… no vintages and no descriptions on where it’s from. I found Patz & Hall, the wine that started our Russian River Valley obsession, but it’s $40 and doesn’t specify what year. They had some $40 years, some $80 years, and some $20 years. Ehh… why not? Patz & Hall Chardonnay it is.

BoozeCarriage has a promise that anything on their site will be delivered, for free, in 30-60 minutes. You have the option to add a tip to the delivery-person, which I appreciate since I don’t always have small bills handy.

The check-out process is easy enough, but when entering my code in for the credit, it only displays a small note but still shows the total cart amount in the box.  I hesitantly hit the button to proceed and hope that the credit goes through. Payment information on the next page shows I’ve only been charged for the amount I went over on the credit. Phew!

Order placed at 8:35pm…

By 9:35pm, can I really have wine in my hand without any planning ahead of time?

My mind wanders… Party runs out of wine, no need to run to the liquor store, order from BoozeCarriage! Come home from a bad day and really need a scotch? No worries! BoozeCarriage is there for you.

My pondering is interrupted by a phone call.  It’s less than 5 minutes after I place the order and a nice gentleman is informing me that they are out of Patz & Hall but they DO have another Chardonnay from Napa that is on sale for the same price.  Hopefully it really is a $40 Chardonnay!  I find it listed on the site (Grgich Hills Chardonnay) for $42.  Fingers crossed it’s good.

I’m disappointed by this, but the customer service is good enough that I’m not too upset.

9:10pm: Doorbell rings… but it’s our dinner instead (Thai food… a good pair with our white wine!)

9:17pm: Doorbell Take 2… SUCCESS!  The wine has arrived. Ordered just 40 minutes ago. Not too shabby!

And they are chilled! Even better.

9:19pm: Wine is open. Thai food is set. Life is good.

We try the Chardonnay and yup… it’s damn good.

Thanks BoozeCarriage.com

Full disclosure: BoozeCarriage.com reached out to me and provided me with a $50 credit to try their site with the purpose of reviewing it.  The review I have posted is reflective of my honest opinion about the experience.

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