This past week I was down in Portland, Maine for meetings. This was the fall version of the meeting I went to in the spring in Portland, Oregon. I flew down Monday connecting through  Philadelphia. There is a direct flight from Toronto but it is on a small Beechcraft prop that holds about 12 passengers, opting for the regional jets was a much better choice.

Definitely ate too much while I was down there, even though the meeting hotel was out by the airport and not right downtown. The first night we had dinner at the Portland Lobster Company. I had the Downeast Feast which came with a 1 1/4 lb lobster, 6 steamer clams, corn on the cob, seafood chowder, fries and cole slaw all for $27.

When you order, they give you a lobster with a number on it, when your order is up it starts flashing and vibrating.

The next night it was back downtown to J’s Oyster Bar. The oysters (from Chesapeake Bay) were cheap, 1 dozen for $12.50, we had three orders at our table. I had a cup of their Lobster Stew which was amazing and then the Seafood Bouillabaisse which was packed with seafood.

Of course with all this food we needed something to wash it down with, there is no shortage of local microbrew pubs like Sebago, Sea Dog Brew House and Gritty McDuff’s.

The final night we had dinner at Gilbert’s Chowder House on Commercial Street. This time I had the seafood chowder and the Fried Maine Whole Belly Clams in crumbs. All of these restaurants are not very large and wait times could be long depending on the time and size of your party.

Finished off with some ice cream at Captain Sam’s homemade ice cream. It had just opened and as we walked past there was a guy standing outside eating ice cream, one of the guys in our group asked him how it was and he said it was amazing and he was going back in for more. After walking a bit we decided we had to go back and try it. I had Kentucky Derby ice cream which had bourbon, almonds and chocolate pieces. The portions were huge and it came with a wooded spoon, not a flat ice cream spoon, but a wooded shaped spoon.

(all photos were downloaded from the internet.)