Restaurant Review
Earlier this summer we spent some time in Old Orchard Beach Maine. We always like to go here early in the season or late August to beat all of the crowds. Maine has some incredible restaurants and let me tell you this is one of them. This has become my new favorite place to eat in the Old Orchard Beach area. We went with our friends and neighbors, Rosalie and Randy. They were the ones that originally shared this Maine gem with us.
We got there not long after they opened so we were seated at a quiet window seat. The menu is filled with local seafood and steak and other non seafood for the non seafood loving people. Our waitress brought over some warm, fresh from the oven, bread and butter. Perfect start!
Rosalie had one of the specials of the night. A Lobster pie…look at that lobster! If you like lobster this is the dish for you. Rich, buttery crumb topping, with roasted vegetables on the side. Rosalie really enjoyed this, In fact, we all cleaned our plates!
Rosalie’s husband, Randy, the non-seafood-loving one in the group, had the black Angus sirloin served with a rich Au Jus sauce along with vegetables and mashed potatoes on the side. (27.95). Those are some nice looking grill marks right there and cooked to Randy’s liking.
Jim had the fresh Haddock Baked Florentine stuffed with spinach, red onion, and gruyere cheese, mashed potatoes and vegetables on the side. Jim loved this flavorful dish. (22.95)
I ordered the most delicious dish I have had in a long time. I had the Parmesan Scallops. Baked sea scallops with Parmesan crumb topping finished with a cream sauce. (27.95) I loved this dish. The scallops were sweet with a little crisp topping and oh! that cream sauce! This is my all time favorite scallops dish. If I could have licked that plate, you bet I would have. Needless to say, none of us took any leftovers back with us.
The Landmark is located at 28 East Grand Ave. in Old Orchard Beach, Maine. The Landmark opens daily at 5pm. For more information be sure to check their website and Facebook.
Enjoy!
If you happen to live in New Hampshire you have certainly heard of the M/S Mount Washington cruise ship that takes visitors on a beautiful cruise on Lake Winnipesaukee. They offer a number of cruises including a Sunday brunch cruise, dinner cruises and theme night cruises. We took my parents for their Mother’s Day champagne brunch cruise.
The Sunday we went it was a bit overcast and chilly but it was still a wonderful day for a 2 1/2 hour cruise on this beautiful boat. This boat is 230 feet long with indoor and outdoor seating, 4 decks and three dance floors. The $54.00 dollar per person includes the cruise, brunch buffet and live entertainment. We sat inside near the center of the boat. After the boat left the dock we decided it was time to check out the brunch buffet. They had a couple of brunch stations set up throughout the boat.
You start out grabbing your plate and silverware then you round the corner and find endless amounts of food. Scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns. Lots of fresh fruit, muffins, danishes, various kinds of salad. Fresh made waffles right in front of you along with a carving station. The food was bright, fresh and delicious.
Between the four of us, I think we had a little bit of everything.
We enjoyed our brunch while listening to a small live band where some of the kids on the ship danced on the dance floor as we cruised the scenic lake.
After Jim finished his plate it was not long before he went looking for the dessert table and boy did he find it! He brought back a variety of cookies, brownies, and pastries for all of us to try.
Some of the staff on boat raved about the brownies and we can see why. They were incredibly rich and chocolatey! Everything we had was very good, we were all stuffed! What a way to spend Mother’s Day!
It does not have to be Mother’s Day to enjoy this as they have brunch most Sundays along with dinner and dance cruises. Find them online and on Facebook for more information and tickets.
Enjoy!
A couple of weeks ago we decided to go see a Broadway show that was coming to the Hanover Theater in Worcester, Massachusetts and what’s a show…with out great dinner! I did a little research on restaurants near the theater and came across Bocado. Bocado is located at 82 Winter Street in Worcester. Bocado is a Tapas and wine bar meaning lots of small plates to share. We decided to do what they call the “Bocado Experience” for $80.00, not including drinks for two people. This included two items from the meat and cheese section of the menu and six…yes six tapas choices along with churros and chocolate sauce for dessert. We came hungry, so we were ready for the food to start!
We started our choices with the fried goat cheese with honey, warm bread, and their classic chorizo. A small pickled pepper and a little square of quince came on the plate as well. The chorizo was very good, spicy not too much. The absolute star of this dish was the fried goat cheese with honey that we spread on the warm bread. This was so delicious my description will not do this plate justice. It was crunchy, creamy, sweet and a little bit of tart from the goat cheese. I have made fried goat cheese in the past and really enjoyed it but to have it with the honey really put it over the top. I will definitely be re creating this dish at home sooner than later.
Next was the fried calamari with lemon, garlic, and crispy capers with an orange horseradish crema with piquillo peppers. ( sorry no picture, did I mention how hungry we were?) We enjoyed this dish as well, I think I liked it a little more than Jim but I have to say the calamari was so tender and sweet and then you get a small amount of hot from the sauce. I would order this again in a heartbeat!
This next dish was Jim’s favorite, well along with the fried goat cheese. It was the pork meatballs with fig, red wine, and blue cheese. When you take a bite of the meatball with the fig and blue cheese, it is literally the perfect bite. The meatball was so tender, then came the sweet from the fig and then the tang of the blue cheese. These were definitely a highlight and one we kept going back for. We tried to contain ourselves as we still had so much more coming out. Needless to
Next dish is one of my all time favorite dishes to order anywhere. Who does not love bacon wrapped scallops? Sweet and salty is never bad but at Bocado the scallops are served with white truffle honey and red pepper flakes. The red pepper flakes added just a pinch of heat to the sweet and salty bite. Needless to say, yes I ate them all. In my defense they were not the really big scallops. By now we really needed our stretch pants on as we were slowing down but still had four more dishes coming!
Shrimp with olive oil, garlic and parsley was up next. This was another great dish with nice flavors from the garlic and parsley, A
5 hour braised beef in a barbecue sauce with mashed potatoes and creme fraise. This beef was so tender, no knife needed here. This was another home run, so much so we were taking; it back to the hotel with
One of Jim’s all-time favorite foods is beans and rice. So for the last main course, Jim picked the steak and rice. This was sliced steak with rice and beans. The steak had a piquillo chimichurri sauce that brought an incredible amount of flavor to the dish. A little hot but not overpowering. This was a delicious dish with tons of flavor and another dish we were not able to finish but we’re taking it with us!
Last, but not least, was dessert. You don’t get a choice with the dessert. Everyone gets the churros with chocolate sauce. I love churros so I was perfectly fine with this! If you are not familiar with churros they are strips of fried dough and here they are served with a chocolate dipping sauce. Jim liked the churros without the sauce, but come on now, what’s not better with chocolate? I enjoyed my bites with the chocolate sauce!
This was an amazing experience from start to finish. Our waitress, I believe her name was Shannon, was born at the old Pease Air Force base and grew up in the Portsmouth, NH area. We had lots to talk about and so many places in common that we all love. The food was nothing shy of some of the best food we have had and hands down the best tapas bar we have been to. The portions are not small at all, you will not leave hungry. so many options and
Although our experience was over and we had our To-Go Bag in hand, I thought I would share with you that there is a significant amount of homeless people in Worcester. We passed many going to the theater and then to the restaurant. When we saw a young man sitting under the bridge with a sign that said something about smiling and he was not asking for money or anything at all, we decided he needed our To-Go Bag more than we did. Needless to say, he was very happy and extremely thankful.
If you find yourself in Worcester, Massachusetts be sure to make a reservation at Bocado as they fill up every night for dinner. Check out their full menu on line and be sure to give them a like on Facebook.
Enjoy!
Sound on?
I mentioned that we celebrated Christmas early as our niece came for a visit. When Christmas was just a couple days away Jim and I decided to hop in the car to visit Amanda, Steve and the twins for Christmas in New York. So after about 7 long hours in the car, getting checked into the hotel it was finally time for us to grab some dinner! After speaking with the hotel staff we decided to go to Sorge’s Restaurant at 68 West Market Street in Corning, New York.
Sorge’s was opened in 1951 by Ronnie Sorge and his brother Remo who both came to the United States from Italy in 1936. Sorge’s is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We stopped by for an early dinner and let me just say we were on the verge of “hangry” (hungry and grumpy= hangry). I don’t have as many pictures as I usually have as the long drive had taken its toll on me!
Thankfully we were seated and had our menus very quick, along with drinks and dinner rolls to start. Since one of the things they are known for is the homemade pasta, that’s what I chose with an Alfredo sauce. After just one bite I had to stop for a moment as the pasta brought me right back to making homemade noodles with my grandmother. Although my grandmother made her pasta for chicken noodle soup and this had Alfredo sauce, the cooked noodle was as identical to my grandmother’s pasta that I have ever eaten. I had Jim take a bite and he too agreed it was
Jim had the Chicken Parmesan Sandwich served with a side of their homemade sauce and chips. As you can see it took me a minute to get Jim’s picture as you are only seeing half the sandwich! Jim was also on the verge of “hangry”! I think I was lucky to get any pictures to be honest! We did not have any dessert as we wanted to get over to see Amanda’s family and new home they just purchased.
When we got back to New Hampshire I had a little more time to research the restaurant and menu a little further. Although they are open for breakfast, lunch
Don’t forget to check the daily specials, those are amazing! Some of the specials have included grilled veggie wraps, meatball pizza and lemon herb crusted salmon to just name a couple things.
If you find yourself in the Corning, New York area stop in at Sorge’s for some homemade pasta or other amazing and just as delicious, menu choices. You can find them online and on Facebook. www.sorges.com
Enjoy!
We really enjoy Thai food so when we heard a new Thai place was coming to town at 499 Central Ave in Dover NH we knew we had to stop in sooner than later. One afternoon while we were out doing some Christmas shopping we decided to stop in for lunch. We were greeted and seated very quickly with water and soda coming soon after.
We decided to start with the fried calamari, this is served with sweet and sour sauce. Both Jim and I really liked the light crispy coating on the outside but were sad to find the calamari over cooked and chewy, if you have ever cooked calamari you know there is a fine line between cooked and over cooked it happens in a matter of seconds. There are very few places that really cook fried calamari well. Needless to say the start of lunch was slightly disappointing but we were not done yet.
For my main course I chose one of thier speciality items, Orange Chicken (as seen in the top picture) ($14.50) this is a crispy chicken stir fry with orange sauce and steamed vegetables served over white rice. The chicken was very crispy with a bright orange sauce garnished with fresh sliced orange slices, the veggies were steamed beautifully still a little crisp just the way I like them. The portion sizes are pretty big as there was no way I could finish but who doesn’t like some to take home? Am I right?
Jim ordered one of his favorite Thai dishes, Pad Thai made with rice noodles and sautéed with egg, ground peanut, scallions, red onion , sweet radish and bean sprouts. Jim enjoyed his dish and cleaned his plate, no take out for him! Over all both of our main dishes were very good.
One thing we did learn while there is that all of the dishes are prepared fresh as they are ordered, we did not have to wait long for our food but if it was really busy I could understand a bit of wait time. We also really liked that thier menu was very clearly marked with the heat levels of each dish along with vegetarian and gluten free options. For anyone with diet restrictions this is an easy menu to read and make decisions.
There are lots of great menu choices from appetizers right through the desserts! Soups salads, lots of curry dishes along with speciality fried rice and if you can’t decide they have combination plates too! Although we did not have dessert they have some delicious ones to chose from. Sweet rice with mango, everyone’s favorite fried ice cream of maybe fried banana’s with or without ice cream. Those all sound like a great way to end to a meal.
If you are passing through downtown Dover NH check out Thai Taste! You can find them on Facebook and a full menu on their website.
Enjoy!
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