Fore Street

Now for the best part of my trip to Portland…

    

I tend to gush about this restaurant, but I can’t help it…it’s THAT good!

The menu changes every night, based on whatever fresh ingredients they can get their hands on. They even have a little climate controlled produce room…so cool! Even though you won’t know the menu until that night, I would never be worried about not having enough options. They always have a full page of appetizers…hot, cold, raw bar, veggie, meat…anything, and just as many options for main courses.

Another thing I always mention, but it’s my favorite part, is the large open kitchen. That night we had a prime table right by the big brick oven where I was able to watch so many orders of mussels go in and out of that oven I could easily re-create them at home…well that is if I had a brick oven and knew what was in that vat of garlic butter they use!

I love places with copper covered table…

 

It’s easy to see what’s popular that night by watching the kitchen, and one of those was the pizza we had as an appetizer.

Wood Oven Pizza – Marinated Fresh Mozzarella, Cauliflower, and Golden Raisins. 

I had this slice and then maybe another half :)  The golden raisins must of been blended in with the cauliflower sauce/puree they used because there was no evidence of whole raisins but the pizza had this subtle sweetness that you couldn’t quite pinpoint, but it was delicious!!

Our other appetizer was this:

Rocket and Cipollini Salad: Artichokes, Maine Farm Goat Cheese, Balsamico, Rich Olive Oil

Simple, yes, but I could not get over how good this salad was!!  There was a lot of “mmmm”-ing and other noises during the appetizers haha.  The balsamic was slightly sweet, but the salad also took on a sweet taste from the roasted cipollini onions…and goat cheese…OMG.    

Hey look, you can see our hotel from the restaurant…very convenient ;)

Next up…main courses!

Brian had the duck breast which was delicious…I can’t remember the description though.

I opted for Bluefish.  I haven’t had bluefish in ages and the description just sealed the deal…

Black chickpeas!?!?  Never heard of those!  They were just as you’d think…same shape, taste, and texture as regular chickpeas but BLACK in color. 

This was amazing.  The roasted sweet peppers, caramelized shallots, and what I’m guessing was butter gave the sauce an incredible flavor!!  Blue fish has a fairly strong flavor on its own and this sauce stood up to it well.

We also had a side of green beans that seemed to slip past the camera.

At this point I was comfortable…which I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing.  Probably good because we couldn’t NOT get at least 1 dessert to share.

After a lot of contemplating, we decided to split the:
Warm Rhubarb Cottage Pudding – Candied Rhubarb, Vanilla Crème Anglaise, Champagne Honey Poached Muscat Grapes, Orange Ice Cream

 

Heaven in my mouth.  The only other cottage pudding I’ve ever had is the version my family makes which is basically a dense yellow cake with a hot chocolate sauce you pour on…mmm. 

However this was more like a mini rhubarb upside-down cake.  I love the tartness of rhubarb.  It was a fabulous compliment to the creamy vanilla crème anglaise and the cool orange ice cream!  I didn’t want this to end!  The Muscat poached grapes were a nice surprise as well. 

Needless to say we had very happy stomachs after this dinner.  We keep saying how we need to try some of the other great restaurants in Portland, but I just can’t stay away from Fore Street.  Maybe if we’re up for more than 1 night we’ll try another place in addition to this :)