Arabica, Black Cow, Olive Cafe, Big Sky Sundry food notes continue.
- Arabica - In some sense it's sad that the first coffee shop I ever stopped at in Maine was Arabica in the Old Port. I consider myself as having tasted some truly stunning lattes in my travels, most of them at Espresso Vivace in Seattle, which is really the high watermark. Their flavor is consistently superb, their presentation in terms of leaf and other artwork in foamed milk is amazing, and they had a great location in Capitol Hill. So I hope you'll take it as no faint praise when I say that Arabica is almost as good as Vivace. Sometimes (not always!), depending on who is pulling the shot, it's actually equal to Vivace. I think that getting a latte there while we were scoping out Portland ended up being one of the deciding factors in my wife agreeing to move out here. Regardless, I haven't bothered trying any other coffee shops as it's hard to imagine there's any point given how good Arabica is.
- Olive Cafe - This Lebanese restaurant just opened up down on the east end of Commercial St, sandwiched between two bars. An officemate tells me the location is somewhat cursed and has high turnover; I hope not, we're enjoying eating there regularly. I first saw this place during one of my treks down Colorado to Flatbread (oh common pilgrimage) and one day Johan and I decided to stop in and see what they had. It's run by a husband and wife team, she works the front of the house and he is the cook (and Lebanese). On our first stop we were informed they doing a local business discount to get people in the door so our meals would actually be 15% off. Johan was craving a regular old burger and ordered one, the waitress told me the special sandwich of the day was a Lebanese treat. Baba ghanoush, sauteed cauliflower, french fries (!), lettuce, diced tomatoes, etc., wrapped in a lavash. Frankly I'm not sure you could describe a more appealing street food to me.
Before the meal we were served hummus and chips--hummus was good although slightly more tahini than I usually enjoy. Chips were homemade deep fried pita--oh frabulous joy. Sandwiches were delivered and mine was as awesome as I'd hoped. Since then I've been back several times and had various vegetarian platters, falafel, and a lovely pureed soup whose ingredients suddenly escape me (fava beans and rosemary I think). Most everything has been well prepared and tasty, the only mis-step I see is that they're not consistently preparing their french fries (which I never order, but other people have complained about them being undercooked sometimes). They're also incredibly busy it looks like, I actually couldn't get a table once, and I saw on a weekend when we stopped in that it looked like they had hired another waitress.
- Big Sky - Whenever I'm running errands up by Congress I'll usually make a quick stop into Longfellow Books (gotta keep those independent book stores solvent) and then head on over to Big Sky to get a soup and sandwich. Much has been written about this specialty shop, their good cheese selection, sweets, and excellent bread. It is all true, and it's great to have a place like this within easy walking distance of the office. I'll usually get a cup of whatever vegetarian soup they have for the day (carrot ginger and black bean recently) and then a grilled cheese with roasted mozzarella and tomato on three seed bread. I believe the cost of the sandwich is about $4, which is an absolute steal, the whole thing together comes to like $7.50. When I'm feeling especially hungry I'll buy two sandwiches which comes to just over $8, which is what a single sandwich can cost at many shops! Then when I get back to the office and sit down to eat the office dog, Zephyr, will anxiously pace by my chair hoping to get some scraps. Poor guy, that's a lot of endless disappointment to endure.
- Black Cow Bistro - we stop in here for a quick meal occasionally when we don't feel like walking up to Big Sky. So far I've tried the portabello mushroom panini and their eggplant sandwich. The former is pretty good, they grill them well, with a nice charred flavor. The slices are almost too thick though, especially given there isn't a lot of marinading going on from what I can taste. Still a tasty sandwich. They have fresh fruit on hand, too, so I'll often grab a pear to round out the meal. The eggplant sandwich, though... let's just say I was disappointed. It was pretty much a mess all around, not much of it I enjoyed eating. As a counterpoint, I actually prefer the eggplant parmigiano with provoline at Amato's to their sandwich here. An upscale deli/bistro should probably be able to beat Amato's any day of the week.
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