neighborhood retro

 new retro-ish place to eat in the neighborhood. diggin it.

i'll have a [cozy] christmas

 

thank[full]

 there's nothing better than going back home to visit friends and family during the holidays...especially if you love them and miss them dearly. thanksgiving found us back in kansas with all sorts of family enjoying food, adventures, stores and good times.  to say i'm thankful for these people is an understatement.

[chicago style] wedding

 a whirlwind trip to chicago one weekend meant lots of good times with old friends and very few pictures.  guess we'll just have mostly memories.... especially of the best breakfast i've ever had in my life.

pun with extra [cheese]

 i can tell i'm getting older.  two thing that bring me enjoyment are good pizza and a clever pun. that might help you imagine my face when i ate here.  pizza was good...i got a shirt.

the [original] burger

like any mid-western boy, i enjoy a good burger, so you can imagine my thrill when this summer found me traveling past new haven, which is home to louis' lunch, the birthplace of the hamburger sandwich.

overall i enjoyed it.  i'm guilty of enjoying mustard, ketchup and relish on my burgers, so it was a bit of a change to only have cheese, onion and a tomato as a garnish. thankfully the meat was so flavorful, you didn't need anything else.

 i'd love  to go back sometime and enjoy the meal inside as it looked like a terribly cozy place to be. 

together like [chili] and [cinnamon rolls]

this pandemic is really starting to get to me. it's now been well over a year since i've seen my family back home.  that along with the winter weather has me needing some warm comfort food, a combo of foods only a mid-westerner would love and even understand. chili and cinnamon rolls.

i made this combo tonight and the spicy mixed with the sweet took me back to my midwest childhood sitting in the school cafeteria.  you see, chili and cinnamon roll day was the one day no one brought a lunch.  everyone loved CCR day!

and it wasn't just at school, this combo was mad at home as well.  large community chili dinners would take place in my hometown before home football games.

this combo isn't for everyone, but for a guy missing his family, this mid-west meal, made kansas seem just a little bit closer.

iykyk

 this midwest boy just found the best fried chicken in maine.

eating good in the [new] neighborhood

it's amazing how a slight change in position can change your perspective.


buying a house just a few miles from the old apartment, i assumed my list of favorite restaurants would change or be updated.  i was wrong.  just a little ways aaway from the new house sits 158 pickett street cafe. a low key, super casual place with incredible food!

this is not a "foodie" blog, simply a reminder to everyone to change your position just a bit every once in a while. doing so, just might change your perspective. it also might allow you to stuff your face with the best home fries ever!

 

 

 

bbq and [besties]

another year older and another year celebrating with bbq.  i'm not complaining about either....

i entered 38 with a surprise gathering my wife planned at one of my favorite places to eat.  she knows too well some of my favorite things in life are well done burnt ends and good friends.  the only downfall was i was so busy chatting and catching up with everyone, i didn't have time to enjoy much bbq.  i did however snag a few smoked chicken wings from a friend which have know entered my top five all time best wings i've ever had in my life.

much like the wings i have a feeling 38 is going to be one of the best years of my life.

[pho]ever and ever

i was introduced to the vietnamese soup know as pho several years back from a group of friends when we were all nursing a new years eve hangover.  since that day, i've been a fan.

pho is definitely one of those dishes where you can get into great heated discussions on which place has the best as well as brag about any place you've "discovered."  when i lived in wichita, i had my preferences on which places to go; however all that pho knowledge was lost when i moved to maine.  to add to the problem, not many of my new northeast where as familiar with the dish as my drunken wichita friends were.

thankfully a few years back i introduced my wife to this perfect bowl of soup so she has had no problem hitting up different vietnamese places around town to try out their pho.  over the last three years we've been on a small quest to find the best pho in portland maine.  well i'm pleased to announce we found it, and it's in westbrook, maine.

my wife, ever looking for a new pho restaurant to try, heard about a place from a local food blogger 207 foodie called phoever maine.  one snowy winter weekend, which is just about every weekend here, we drove to westbrook to try it out.  it was located in a strip center, which in my experience actually means it's off to a good start.  we walked in and it was fairly full...another good sign.  we both ordered pho and anxiously awaited our bowls.  a few minutes later we were both peering over the bowl breathing in that sweet pho aroma.  with pho it doesn't take long to know if it's good or not.  one sip of the broth and you'll know.  we both tried a sip and were immediately in love.  adding a few sauces and garnish and we were off.

if this was a movie rather than a blog this paragraph would just be a montage of us eating, because we were there a long time enjoying every last drop. 90 minutes later and we had finished the entire bowl and my wife asked me what i thought.  i was hesitant to admit my true feelings because up until this meal, i had been the one to find the best pho place, but i knew that she had indeed found it; a competition i really don't mind losing.  needless to say we have been back and it was just as good.

[a]typical maine saturday

in a town famous for craft beers and delicious food, heading to a brewery on a saturday seems like the perfect way to enjoy an early fall afternoon.  on the recommendation from several people we decided to check out "oxbow blending and bottling."  we met up with friends and enjoyed an afternoon full of sours, pilsners, ipa's and duckfat fries which are a gift from the food gods themselves.  not only was it great to catch up with everyone, but it seemed like the entire city was enjoying the weather.

i feel every city has a rhythm to it, and i'm starting to sync with portland's.  a lot of this cities beat is based on where best to enjoy a pint; by the ocean, at 'camp', on the patio or inside by a fireplace.  this particular weekend, being too cool to be by the ocean, but also too sunny to be inside, it was for sure patio time in portland.

dats alotta [sandwhich]

i love road side attractions.


sometimes they're strange land forms, unique structures or historic sites, but more often then not it's an object or animal that seems to vastly different than most other object like it.  you often hear "the world's largest...", "the worlds deepest..", "the worlds smallest..", etc etc ect.  if i'm on the road and see a sign for one of these attractions, you can bet i'm going to stop and check it out.  now imagine my delight when one of these events basically came to me.

last month the city of portland, maine decided to create the world's largest ham italian.

a little back story for those unfamiliar with this type of sandwich.

to make a long story short, back in the day, a baker named giovanni amato was selling bread to the dock workers of portland.  by request, he started adding sliced meat and vegetables to the bread making a simple ham sandwich.  since he was italian, they became known as ham italians.  he sold so many he eventually opened a restaurant.  over one hundred years later it's a staple in the state of maine, with his store still going strong as well as several other deli's selling their version of the sandwich.

i was introduced to these sandwiches last year by a friend of mine who is a true "mainer."  being the type of guy who loves local culture and wanting to embrace my new home, as well as thinking it's a pretty damn tasty sandwich, i've become a true fan, belonging to several on-line social media groups filled with ham italian fan-dom.

imagine my excitement when it was announce that a group was organizing an effort to create the world's largest ham itailian.  food! local culture! world record!  there was no way i was going to miss this.  i took an early lunch that day and met up with my wife to head down to the square where it was taking place.  as i turned the corner of the street i saw 177 feet of italian bread.  several deli's would make different sections of the sandwich until it was completed.  as they piled on the sliced ham, veggies, oil and vinegar, i was scoping out which section i would like to try.  as it's not really too complicated of a sandwich to make, the event didn't take long.  i grabbed a couple of slices, sat back and enjoyed my ham itailian.  

not only did i get to try a few varieties of the sandwich from different deli's but there were several other ham italian "fans", who oddly all looked exactly like me, doing the same thing.  i chatted with many of them and now follow several of them on instagram.

in the end, it wasn't an "official" world record as the proper judges weren't there, but the sense of community felt that day was something special.  although this event is pretty much incapable of become a road side attraction i do believe photos of the event will be placed in the local museum under the "ham italian" exhibit.

yes, it's a real thing. be sure to grab a ham italian and check it out.

parents [week]

remember in kindergarten when you would have an open house and your parents would visit your school so you could show off your classroom?  it was your chance to show your mom and dad your desk where you do all your work as well as the location on the mat where you eat your snacks.  it's a time to introduce them to your school friends and show them where you hang out at recess.  it was a whole night dedicated to showing your parents this whole new "school" life you were a part of; a different and exciting new world outside your home.  i remember how great of a feeling it was to share all this with them.

well, i can tell you as a 37 year old man it's still possible to have the same feeling.

i live nearly 2,000 miles from where i grew up and i don't get to see my parents nearly enough as i'd like.  maybe that's why after they drove up this summer to visit my wife and i, just like in kindergarten, i was excited to show them this new maine life i've created.  i may not have been able to show them everything, but it's only because this new northeast life is a slightly larger floor plan than my kindergarten classroom, but i did my best.

the major event was taking a trip to boothbay harbor to show them the town we love so much.  we spent two days eating at our favorite restaurants and meeting the friends we had made up there.  by the end of the boothbay trip, they shared our love of the town.  back in portland, i introduced them to the sandwich known as a maine ham italian, took them to trivia night at a brewery, ate at one of my favorite bbq spots and of course, just like in kindergarten, showed them my desk where i do all my work.

to say i enjoyed having them up for a week long visit would be an understatement, it really was fantastic.  just like when i was young, it was wonderful to show off this new world to my parents.

whether it's a 15 minute school bus ride, or a four day, 2,000 mile road trip, distances seem shorter when there are shared memories, and this trip created several.

bright lika a [great] diamond

even with summer making it's end more official with labor day weekend, we took the opportunity a three day weekend gave us to explore another new spot in maine; great diamond island.  we had heard about a great new restaurant called "crown jewel on the island and decided to check it out.  a short 45 minute ferry ride brought us to our destination; a very cute and very pink establishment.  as expected the food was great.  the burgers we both tried paired well with the miller high life "ponies" they offered.

i'm not sure we'd ever pick up one evening to go and grab dinner there, but for a lazy summer sunday, it was a gem of a spot to try out.