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Welcome to eGullet hungernot! I'll look forward to seeing you on the 17th. I actually ate at Hugo's with my inlaws last weekend. My new favorite dish is the Chicken and Sweetbread fricassee. I agree with Siren that Bibo's and 555 are good choices for the pre-theater. There are also two Norm's establishments around the corner. The bar and grill being more dinner oriented. The Chinese place there is iffy. I agree with johnnyd that The Bar of Chocolate is your best dessert/brandy place, but if your in the more for just brandy, The Top of the East in The Eastland Hotel offers a great view. I heard a couple of weeks ago that Bandol is moving to this part of Congress Street in a couple of months.

Sorry Margo. As far as I know just the Filene's in the Maine Mall.

Jon and I went to Filene's yesterday. They still have a fair amount of good stuff. Kitchen Aid Pro 600's 30% off, some AllClad, a fair amount of Simply Calphalon deeply discounted (I think 60% off, but am not positive). Also FoodSavers at 30% off for those of you who cook sous vide.

Now there's an idea. I've always thought that that little strip of tilting buildings down by Harbor Fish/The Porthole would make a nice little marketplace as well.

Sometimes for a brunette I can be very blonde. Of course you can't sell a charitable trust. I am frightened by the number of condos going up in Portland right now. Have you seen the plans for the Westin? Every inch of the block from India to Franklin, Fore to Middle will be 7 story hotel/condos except for the tiny 2 story building that houses Hugo's.

From your pictures, it looks like you are using sustainable farming practices. Are you organic or biodynamic? If so, what sort of requirements do you need to meet for certification? I went to Oregon Pinot Camp and a lot of the growers there were talking about their frustrations with the financial obligations of becoming certified. Is certification in California different than in Oregon?

Two others are: Sophia's on Market St. next to Tommy's Park. Great European style pastries, Cannolis are filled to order to avoid sog. Their Tini bread makes a great sandwich. Steve,the baker was writing a book over the last year or so, so their hours were pretty sketchy, but they seem to have settled down to Tues-Sun 9 to 2. Sunday they serve brunch. Rosemont on Brighton Ave is a bakery as well as a grocery. I like their baguette with it's extra thick crust and they also sell fresh pizza dough which we get fairly frequently. (And the vegetables here really are fresh )

I was there on Monday around 2ish and was 1 of maybe 20 people in the entire market. I'm hoping that someone as beneficent as Elizabeth Noyes buys the foundation. Can you imagine the Market as condos?

Sometimes I wonder if we partly have ourselves to blame for things like this. I rarely freeze seafood, yet remember as a kid deheading and freezing fifty to a hundred lbs of Maine shrinp at a time to last us through the rest of the year. I don't really remember a huge taste discrepancy between fresh and frozen Maine shrimp. Has our commitment to fresh, seasonal, regional food has led us down this path to where our local industries are suffering because they have no market? Clearly, I live and work with a commitment to fresh, regional, and seasonal food, but where would we be without preserved foods like salting, pickling, canning, and the like?

I would be happy to pass along your message, but I should explain that VinItaly is attended by thousands every day. The last time we went it was 16 airline hangers filled with wine. We were tasting 50-100 wines a day for five days and never scratched the surface of what was there. fatdeko- thanks for your concise explanation of a very convoluted system

Rachel's isn't closed, they just moved. They are now located on Woodford's Street near where it meets Brighton, almost directly behind Rosemont Bakery. I won't tell Jon that you called him Dave. I'm sure that he told you about my love affair with Campari. The problem with drinking aperitifs is that you wake up hungover and starving. The Bar of Chocolate on Wharf Street serves Cynar; I like to go there for one after dinner sometimes. Jon and I are going to Italy in April for VinItaly, the Italian Wine fair in Verona, where I can hopefully do more "research" on the subject. I'm glad you like the store. Their wine selection is great, especially when it comes to Italian wines. I also like the whimsical Michael Aram serving pieces upstairs and the Favorita Fish jarred foodstuffs, especially the sundried tomatoes in oil.

wine: A & P de Villaine Bourgogne blanc (sorry, I don't remember the vintage) food: mushroom consomme with orange agrumato (hazy on the exact mushroom as well) A few years ago, I was pairing wines for a meal at the restaurant where I work. We had a variety of wines, white, pink, & red, open for comparison with each of the dishes we were sampling. This was one of the most perfect matches I have ever tasted. They really became one in your mouth. The gentle oaking of the wine gave depth to the consomme and the earthiness of the consomme added complexity to the wine. Other than the fact that the wine was there and open, I don't think that I would have ever thought of combining the two.

ooh that's terrible! Water damage cleanup sucks.

johnnyd, is it just me or does this seem early for shrimp to be producing eggs? I had some tonight and noticed the roe and was thinking that eggs should show up closer to spring.

Hi Jack, welcome to Portland! About the cachaca, illegal and unallowed are my poor choice of words. Unfortunately, what is sold in Maine is controlled by a few people and these people tend to be busier making sure that they continue their gauranteed monopolies than finding new things to sell. Right now they have funded a lobbyist to make sure that there is no direct shipping in Maine, so that not only do they not have to carry anything that you want, you won't be able to buy it somewhere else either. (Not that I'm bitter or anything) As far as what we pay for liquor, I think our only discount is that we don't pay sales tax as we are a reseller. Yes, we do buy from Downeast Beer and Beverage and also Bow Street Liquors in Freeport. I'm moving this week, so any unresponsiveness on my part is due to not being able to find the computer.

Hi ghostrider. I'm originally from Boothbay, so my first grownup meals were at The Osprey (in the Robinhood Marina) and at 22 Lincoln (Sam Hayward's restaurant in Brunswick). I remember the cooking that you were describing, but unfortunately don't know the chef. Rob was probably still cooking on cruise ships at this time and Melissa Kelly (from Primo) was cutting her chops in NYC. Boo - I'm glad you enjoyed Duckfat. It looks like you went for the full tasting menu. I've had to limit myself to only ordering the fries when I eat in (the Hugo's waitstaff are Duckfat's best customers as we regularly get takeout before service). I also recommend the Malted Black and White Milkshake. Although with the glass and the dividend, it's dessert for two.

Unfortunately, this dish was replaced with Porcini Risotto for New Years, but the matsutake risotti is still on the bar/dining room menu for now. We have a local forager named Rick Tibbets who supplies us. I think these are from New Hampshire. There are other shrimp? Thanks! I am working and it looks like it is going to be a fun night. bobmac- Honey's, The Front Room, Shahnaz's, Scales, Duckfat, Sophia's, and the sushi restaurants are all open for lunch. 555, Bandol, Caiola's, Cinque Terre, Fore Street, Hugo's, and Street & Co. are only open for dinner.

If I have properly posted this link it's the menu:New year's Eve menu at Hugo's Innovative New England sounds kinda cheesy I know, but people always ask what type of restaurant Hugo's is, so we had to come up with something. While we make our own pastas and risotto or risotti, we're not Italian, while the guys can put out a mean sauce, we're not French, and while we sort of slide in as modern American, we have a real focus on local foods and regional cooking which requires a refinement of that label. I guess we define ourselves as applying these worldly techniques to the local ingredients and dishes we grew up with. Rob is of Irish descent (Potato dinner on his birthday every year) from Southboro, MA with many of his formative years spent in Newfoundland (hence the "Love Affair with Cod").

Sort of, John was the general manager of the Greengrocer and his partner in Rosemont, Scott, was the baker there as well, but Nick who has always been the sole owner of the Portland Greengrocer has no interest in Rosemont.

You certainly can, but you don't have to break the bank to eat at Hugo's. The bar menu is reasonable. My favorite dish right now is the cod dish: Crispy cheek, tempura tongue, brandade cake, and house-salted cod for $10. There are some really good wines in the 20-30 dollar range. The best thing about Rosemont is that for the most part you can get fresher, better tasting produce for less than Hannaford. They also have a really good cheese selection with a good turnover, so while it is more compact than Horton's, I've rarely seen overripe cheese there.

I ate at the Front Room last Sunday. The food was really good and really affordable. The room is very attractive. They are doing breakfast, lunch, and dinner with breaks in between services as there is no prep kitchen. They are located about four doors down (closer to the water) from The Blue Spoon (which is still open), directly across from the Saint Lawrence Church. I would definitely go back. I also tried Caiola's last week, just for apps. It was great. On your recommendation Siren, I had the caesar with fried oysters. Wow! They are definitely the best I've had since Aubergine closed. I actually signed on to post about Rosemont Bakery. So, I got the best mushrooms there on Tuesday. Just plain ol' buttons, but I sauteed them in oil with onions (for lasagna that I apparently promised my bf, even though I was dreaming of shrimp risotto), but they were so succulent. I pulled them out of the pan just as they were starting to drop water and they held up perfectly through the baking. And last night, Jon roasted me some sunchokes from there as well. Just delicious, I love that place .

Thanks for all the great information. I found it funny that the prosecco in the hotel minibars in Italy were about half the price of the water. My favorite prosecco is De Faveri Prosecco Spumante Nera Brut. It's light and dry with peachy-apricot flavors. It seems to be pretty readily available too. I also like it mixed with Cipriani bellini mix.

I don't normally make big batches of shrimp stock, like I would for chicken or fish stocks so my routine is to buy a pound and a half of shrimp, shell them and then simmer the shells in a 2 quart pot for about an hour (Unlike chicken, I don't find that you can extract much more flavor with more time). For just Jon and myself, I too just use a fine sieve, if we have company I will sometimes go the coffee filter route for clarity. My goal is three cups of liquid, so I reduce some but not a lot. If I'm adding the meats to the risotto, I just toss them in raw when I add the butter and cheese letting the warm rice just steam them quick for me.

Last time I was in Boston, I had snacks at The Butcher Shop @ 552 Tremont St., owned by the lady that owns No 9 Park. Fantastic. Also great were drinks around the corner at cafe Umbra. We ate dinner at Via Matta (79 Park Plaza), which is classic Italian and very good (I especially loved the cheese course with mostarda). Another favorite is the bar at Zygomates at 129 South St, which is around the corner from Chinatown where Ginza at 16 Hudson St is our favorite sushi. Penang at 685 Washington St is great Maylasian (there is a salt cod dish on the menu that my bf dreams about).

I love these little delicacies. I grew up having to dehead 50 lbs at a time for winter freezing and never have been able to buy meats only. My current favorite delicacy is making stock out of the shells and cooking shrimp risotto. Nothing makes me hungrier than smelling shellfish stock. The lobster stock that they cook in the restaurant drives me to distraction and shrimp stock simmering in the house has the same effect on me.