We had one day before heading to Lake George where we didn't have anything planned. But it had been quite some time since either of us had been to Portland and Freeport. So we hit the road!
View of downtown Portland, ME.
Portland was quite busy, but we were able to find parking and walk around for a while.
We visited a few shops and asked the local wine shop owner for a lunch recommendation. He suggested we give J's Oyster Bar on the Portland Pier a try. It wasn't much to speak of on the outside, but oh the fun we had people watching. There were a group of regulars who would perch at the bar, order their lunch-time beverage and meal and catch up with the other fellas.
While waiting for our food, I noticed the placemats offered some very valuable information about lobsters.
Lobster - the new white meat!
The raw oysters, clam chowder and lobster stew were delicious!
After lunch, we wandered around the piers for a bit. It was a very nice way to spend some time in a charming city.
We hopped back in the zippy red Caddy and headed north to Freeport. Our destination was LLBean. We followed the signs and ended up "downtown" at the outlet mall. LLBean was disappointing, but we did find another favorite store (Brooks Brothers) and had a very successful stop there.
Traveling up and down US 1 between Kennebunkport and Wells, we would pass the Maine Diner. It didn't matter what time we drove by, there was always a line and the parking lot was packed! I noticed on the front of the building the name,
Maine Diner, and "as seen on
Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives". Well of course we had to give it a try! So we decided that would be the place we'd have dinner the last night in Maine.
We brought our books as we anticipated there was going to be a wait and we arrived a little earlier than normal dinner time. It was crowded! But we put our name on the list and got our buzzer. We barely had time to get outside and the buzzer went off. (So much for catching up on our reading!)
We ended up with a front row seat, at the counter. We were in for a treat, right in the middle of all the action! Our waitress (note: there are not "servers" in a diner) was very pleasant, but there was no dilly-dallying. Specials were on the board and some amazing pies/cakes were on the counter in their display box.
Ok, back to our job of deciding what we wanted. No sooner than our order was tacked up on the window, our waitress was dressing our salads and delivering someone's order. There were probably 8 waitresses that would walk back and forth between the eating counter and the fixing area. Not once was there a crash, bump or otherwise problem with so many people in such a small space, going about 100 miles an hour! It was impressive. There must have been 25 people working in the kitchen because as fast as orders were placed, meals were coming out through the little window!
We ordered the seafood chowder, lobster mac & cheese and lobster pie. De-licious!
We're really glad we decided to stop there for dinner!
So back to the 'as seen on DDD'. It was only about 2 weeks prior to our eating there when their episode debuted on the FoodNetwork! We didn't get a chance to see the episode (which was airing again the next day), but did find it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD6-RMIPeN4
And now we know the secret to the deliciousness we consumed. :o)
A few shots of the Maine coastline:
