Trip Report: Central Provisions disappointingly pretentious

Report from recent 48-hour trip to Maine to see the amazing Richard Estes exhibit at the Portland Museum of Art (Now closed, catch it at the Smithsonian).

Mostly everything we had was good. Great tips on this board.

Stayed at The Breakers Inn in Scarborough, a cute B&B right on the ocean featuring hearty breakfasts for their guests (open menu, order whatever you want) including pancakes, eggs, ham, bacon, fruit, hot huckleberry muffins, and grilled English muffins, yes! Served with delicious homemade strawberry, raspberry and rhubarb jams.

Enjoyed good wood-fired, thin crust sausage pizza at Flatbread, in Old Port, Portland. My only qualm is the slices were a bit floppy in the middle. (Ordered the pie well done, and upper crust was good and crispy.)

First rate dinner at 555, and liked their open kitchen. Very good food - fresh heirloom tomatoes, charcuterie plate, marinated hangar steak that was quite tender, trio of fun ice creams- beer & pretzels, cherry coke, and buttered popcorn. The Arnold Palmer souffle (lemon souffle with tea ice cream) needed more lemon for my taste, but was otherwise nicely poofy and went well with the ice creams.

Speaking of ice cream, the homemade blueberry ice cream at Curly Cones in Old Port was very smooth with good berry flavor. When I started to take a photo the owner wanted to jazz it up to make it a fun shot, as you can see.

Doughnuts at The Cookie Jar in Cape Elizabeth were gargantuan, but light and fresh. Brought some with us on our further jaunt to Boston.

The one sour note of the trip was lunch at Central Provisions. I chose it thinking it would be a fun place to meet up with a dear friend who lives near Portland. I haven't seen her in 30 years and she's fallen on hard times healthwise. I wanted to treat her to a nice lunch and take her to the art exhibit as a special treat. Central Provisions seemed like it would fit the bill from all the raves I read. Sadly, it didn't.

In a word, Central Provisions was pretentious. While my husband took time to find parking, my friend and I took seats at the bar and ordered a number of items for all of us to share (he was still full from breakfast so he said keep it light, he would just pick): We chose the Spanish jambon, spicy fried potatoes, arancini, heirloom tomatoes (I truly can not get enough of fresh-grown heirlooms), and what I was most looking forward to, a BLT. The menu described the BLT simply as bacon, lettuce, tomato, bread. Not knowing if the sandwich would come slathered in mayo, which I really don't like, I asked the server if I could get the bread dry or with butter. She instantly said No, and words to the effect that the chef has very specific ways he wants the dishes served and does not make substitutions. Please, I said, just nothing on the bread? No, she said, they can not do that. Inside, I was absolutely seething. Outside, I just shrugged and said, well I guess we'll have to order something else then. My friend, who is the sweetest person on the planet, smiled and ordered a crab melt instead. Since I'm allergic to seafood, I passed.

For drinks, I noticed the list of house made sodas and ordered a ginger ale for my husband, because he loves strong ginger beer. It had a strong ginger root flavor, good. My friend is diabetic and asked if they had anything without sugar. No. So she said water would be fine. I asked for water too. It was lukewarm and served in 1980's-chic jelly jars, which I wouldn't have minded if the water was cold.

The server then told us that the plates would arrive to our table in a "special way" in the order the chef believed they should be eaten. We may get them one at a time or a number at a time. Fine. The first plate to arrive was the Spanish jambon. A board of sliced ham and NOTHING else. No mustard or cornichons like we got the previous week at Jose Garces' restaurant Amada in Philadelphia. Just ham, dry ham, and lukewarm water to drink and no other plates. It seems to me, the plates came out in the order of quickest to plate to longest to prep and serve, not in some "special" chef-dictated order. I would have asked for mustard for the ham and ice for the drinks, but I knew better...

The heirloom tomatoes were good, and the arancini rice balls were some of the best I have ever had - crispy on the outside and risotto-like on the inside. My friend said the crab melt was good. My husband nibbled on a couple of the sliced potatoes, said they were ok.

Watching the staff from the bar, a young woman at the cold prep station was working very hard on the salads, and constantly replenishing the mise en place when there was a lull. The men at the sandwich/cook station were having a good time chitchatting, and one was reading the Noma cookbook. I really don't think they would have cared that I asked to leave the mayo off the BLT.

Despite the amazing rice balls, the server's admonition and warm drinking water at Central Provisions was a food downer. Fortunately, seeing my friend after all these years was so much fun, we just kept telling stories and laughing. I was in such a happy mood from the reunion I even left the server a 22% tip.

Photos (from my crappy cell phone):
Huckleberry Muffins, Breakers Inn
Rice Balls, Central Provisions
Sausage Pizza, Flatbread
Pancakes, Breakers Inn
Homemade Jams, Breakers Inn
Blueberry Ice Cream, Curly Cones
Ice Cream Trio, 555
Doughnuts, The Cookie Jar