New England Vacation 2020 Part I: Portland, ME

Tommy

Just a Millennial living in the real world...

Well unfortunately 2020 is not over yet and COVID-19 cases are currently surging so that means that I am social distancing from a lot of people… Thanksgiving is coming up and it is usually a very busy travel week, but that is probably not happening in 2020. So I wanted to blog about something positive and share my New England vacation with you all, which I was fortunate enough to go on back in mid-October (Friday October 8 – Saturday October 17). Every year, I usually take a family vacation and we decided to drive out to New England. Due to COVID-19, it almost didn’t happen as my parents were still undecided on whether or not they felt comfortable with going due to their age. During COVID-19, it’s especially hard to travel when people are from different generations. In this case, it was Millennial and Baby Boomers. But we ended up going and everything ended up being fine as no one got COVID-19. And we are very happy that we went because it allowed us to escape from our homes and it definitely recharged us mentally! My New England Vacation blog post will be divided into multiple parts as we traveled to multiple locations.

I should start off by saying that we followed every state’s COVID-19 travel guidelines at the time. Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont had some of the lowest COVID-19 cases and death rate in the U.S. Since COVID-19 is a very fluid situation, some travel guidelines have changed since October.

Back in October, Pennsylvania had no out of state traveler restrictions, but now that has changed. More information on Pennsylvania’s out of state visitor restrictions can be found here. Maine required us to take a COVID-19 PCR test within 72 hours of arrival, have a negative test result, and fill out a compliance form. More information can be found here. The hardest part was trying to get a negative test result back within 72 hours, but Curative and CVS did just that back in October. If one of us tested positive, we would go home immediately, which would have been a bummer. We all took our COVID tests on the Thursday before and we all received received our results on Saturday, which all were negative. Also, both hotels that we stayed at in Maine never asked us to show the negative COVID-19 test and they just had us sign the compliance certificate. New Hampshire waived the 14-day quarantine for those who were traveling from Maine at the time. More information on New Hampshire’s travel restrictions can be found here. Lastly, we didn’t stay in Vermont, but here is Vermont’s travel restrictions. During this vacation, we wore a mask in all public areas (in most places it was required) and socially distanced ourselves from people. Again, everything went fine and none of us got COVID-19 from traveling during the Pandemic.

With that knowledge, this vacation required a ton of planning and what-if scenarios. But that is my specialty!

Day 1: Driving to the East Coast

The drive from Lake Bluff, IL to Portland, ME is about 17 hours so we decided to split the driving between two days. You also lose/gain an hour with the time change to/from EST/CST. The first and last days of the trip would be our longest driving days, which were about 11 hours each way, and we stopped in Sayre, PA both ways. Sayre is a very rural, industrial town with an estimated population of 5,500 people. It’s literally located right on the border of upstate New York and Pennsylvania and it’s about an hour south of Ithaca, NY where Cornell University (Ivy League) is located.

On this trip, we stayed at mostly Hilton hotels, as I am a Hilton Honors Diamond member, which I get with my AMEX Hilton Honors Aspire credit card. We stayed at the Hampton Inn Sayre, which is a 2-star hotel. The hotel definitely didn’t have any thrills, but the hotel was clean, in a safe area, and it gave us a place to sleep so it served it’s purpose. There was also a very cool microbrewery that was right next to the hotel called Bluestone Brewing Company, which was had solid beer and had some great food!

Day 2: Driving to Portland, ME

We woke up the next day and left Sayre around 9am as we had about a 7 hour drive to Portland, ME. This was a pretty scenic drive through upstate NY. We went through Albany, NY and around Boston, MA. The fall foliage was at peak through these states in mid-October so it was gorgeous. We arrived at the Hilton Garden Inn Portland Downtown Waterfront around 4pm, which was a 3-star hotel located in the Old Port neighborhood. The selling point of the hotel was location, location, location as it was right in the middle of downtown Portland and everything was pretty much within walking distance. Since it was Columbus Day weekend, rates were higher than normal at about $300/night. Portland is known for it’s art scene, breweries, and it’s a foodie’s paradise. Portland has about 60,000 residents, but it is also a big into tourism.

We got settled into our hotel and I called up the Highroller Lobster Company to see how long the wait for a table would be. It was around 5pm and they said that they had limited seating and it would be about an hour wait, but carryout would be ready in 15 minutes. We were starving so we ordered carryout online and it was about a 10 minute walk from our hotel so it worked out well!

The city was pretty crowded as it was a Saturday night, but everyone was wearing masks and it looked like all of the restaurants offered outdoor seating and had safety precautions in place. As we walked around, we saw an open bench in a small park near Highroller and my Dad saved a spot. Coincidentally, I just realized it when writing this blog post, the park was named Tommy’s Park. How cool!

Since I am a huge foodie, I did a lot of research on what food I wanted to eat. My research consists of reading Yelp/Google reviews/local blogs, reading Eater/Timeout if applicable and other media outlets, and I check out menus to figure out which places I want to eat at. I found Highroller from a best lobster rolls in Portland, ME video by Buzzfeed and watched a YouTube video about it and I was sold. They have some very interesting items on their menu like a Lobster Cheese Crisp Taco, Lobster Grilled Cheese, and a Lobby Pop (Lobster Tail on a stick). The taco and the grilled cheese were amazing! The taco was like 10 times better than a Dorito’s Loco Taco as it was much cheesier and the grilled cheese had a ton of butter and loads of cheese. There were also huge chunks of lobster meat, probably the biggest pieces I’ve seen. My Dad had the Lobster Roll and let me have a bite and the roll was super soft, tons of flavor, and huge chunks of lobster meat. The Highroller Lobster Co. was amazing and I think the Lobster Roll was the best Lobster Roll I have ever had! Also, they had 10 different toppings that you could put on your Lobster Roll choosing up to 3 choices. You could go basic with something like drawn butter or something more exotic like charred pineapple mayo or jalapeno mayo. So there is a ton of customization and I would love to go back and try it again!

It was about 70 degrees and a beautiful night so we decided to walk around downtown Portland some more. I wanted to go to Rising Tide Brewery, but it was too far away and we went to Shipyard Brewing Co., but it was a massive line. So we stumbled upon Boone’s Fish House & Oyster Room near the hotel to grab a nightcap. The place was packed around 6:30pm, and initially telling us it would be a 2 hour wait. But we said we just wanted to drink and they were able to accommodate us immediately with an open spot in the bar area. The bar was full, but we were socially distance and they had the doors open. They had the Shipyard Smashed Pumpkin beer on tap so I was able to have that and they even suggested having it with a cinnamon rim, which made it even better! Apparently, the manager didn’t like how the host treated us at the door and she came by and gave us some free calamari, which was a nice gesture even though we weren’t offended by the host. The fried calamari was solid and it had a Asian zing to it as it had some sweet & sour sauce poured over it. We had a long conversation and she was said how this was Boone’s last weekend open of the year as it will close for winter. She said that it’s normal and other places do shut down during winter as they are more seasonal, which makes sense as Portland is pretty touristy. So of course we stayed for some more drinks after that happened.

After Boone’s, we headed back to the hotel and I stopped by Old Port Spirits & Cigars just to check out their bourbon collection. When I am in new places, I usually check out random liquor stores to see if they have any unicorns (rare bourbons) at MSRP prices. And I did find the Elijah Craig Small Batch Barrel Proof (ECBP) Batch #A119 for $60. ECBP is in my top 5 for favorite bourbons coming in at #4 and it’s almost impossible to find in Chicago. Winning!

Day 3: Exploring Portland

We tried to sleep in the next morning, but I still woke up around 8am as I’m a morning person. The front desk recommended grabbing breakfast at Standard Baking Co., which was located right next to the hotel.

My Mom and I went outside and it was freezing as the temperature was about 32 degrees. I guess that is typical Maine weather, which is similar to Chicago with the drastic temperature changes. We didn’t realize how popular Standard Baking was as there was a line of about 15 people ahead of us at around 8:30am on a Sunday. There was a good amount of people, but the line moved pretty fast and we only waited about 20 minutes. We were lucky because by the time we got our food, the line was around the corner and there were about 30 people waiting. So good timing! You can also order online for to go orders. For food, we ordered a number of pastries and I ordered a coffee. Prices were reasonable at about $3-$4/pastry.

The pastries were amazing and the Almond Croissant was the best croissant I have ever had! It was very sweet, flaky, soft, and the almonds were toasted. The blueberry scone was a little dry, but I am not a huge fan of scones. The morning bun was very sweet and fresh. Their coffee was solid as well. Overall, Standard Baking was excellent!

After breakfast, we got dressed and drove over to Fort Williams Park, which was about a 20 minute drive from Old Port. Fort Williams Park is a 90-acre park located in Cape Elizabeth with history and it is where the Portland Head Lighthouse is located, which is the most photographed lighthouse in the U.S. It was absolutely gorgeous out, but very windy. So there were a ton of people at the park around 11am, but there was ample free parking. We spent about 2 hours walking around the park and there was some very cool ocean views, sights, and history. I could see why the Portland Head Light is the most photographed lighthouse in the U.S. as it was pretty neat!

After visiting Fort Williams Park, we got back to the hotel around 1:30pm. Our plan was to put our name on the waitlist at Eventide Oyster Co. as it’s notorious for their long wait times, like 3+ hour wait times during peak times. We figured we would eat a late lunch/early dinner around 3:30-4:30pm and the wait times wouldn’t be that bad during an off period. I walked over there and the place was packed and there was a line for the hostess stand. Well we learned that there really isn’t an off period on a weekend because I was completely wrong and they told me the wait time would be 5-6 hours. I’m not joking… On a Sunday afternoon at around 2pm, the wait time was 5-6 hours… So I put my name in and gave them my number, they sent a text confirmation and then I was all set to wait 5-6 hours… The wait time only took about 4 hours and we were seated around 6pm so it actually worked out very well!

Eventide offers outdoor seating and carryout during COVID. We had a small outdoor table, but there was a space heater right next to us. When the sun went down, the weather became very chilly at around 40 degrees. The patio had space heaters, but not every table had one right next to them so we got lucky. Our waitress greeted us and we ordered some drinks. Eventide is also known as a cocktail bar and had a lot of offerings from their full bar. I ordered the Old Fashioned, my Dad ordered the Dirty Martini, and my Mom had a 7 and 7. My Old Fashioned was good (but I can make them better) and my Dad loved his Dirty Martini. I enjoyed my Manhattan a lot better. The cocktails were fairly strong so fair warning about them.

The waitress said that Eventide is like a tapas style restaurant, which I didn’t know and I typically don’t really like because I think tapas is overpriced food and the business model makes people spend more money. It was exactly like a tapas style restaurant, but the food was very good! We started things off with oysters, which my Dad and I will eat. They had 12 different types of oysters, which were all from the East coast. We had our waitress pick her favorites and we took her advice as we really didn’t know the difference. We were not disappointed! My favorites were the Wet Smack and the Dodge Cove oysters and they were both meatier. Each one had a distinct flavor as the brine was very different. These oysters were probably the best oysters I have ever had!

My Mom ordered the cheeseburger, which she said was very good. The lobster roll was very good, but very small and $15. Literally, I could have probably eaten the roll in two bites, but I didn’t… I get that it’s high quality and locally sourced, but the Highroller lobster roll was 3 times bigger for $5 more and I thought the lobster meat was better and definitely more plentiful. I thought the brown butter roll (what they are known for) was very good as it was fresh/soft, but the butter a little overwhelming. The Fried Oyster bun was very good and it had a good kick because of the jalapenos. It very small as well, but way better priced at $9 so definitely better value. I thought the soups were the best part about our meal. It was freezing cold outside so we ordered two soups to split and maybe I’m biased. But I thought the Lobster Stew was one of the best soups I’ve ever eaten and it had a plethora of flavors including green curry and coconut. The New England Clam Chowder was also very good, but Pike Place Chowder in Seattle was better. Both soups were steaming hot and it was exactly what you need on a cold night to warm you up quickly.

Service was excellent, but prices were expensive as it is a tapas style restaurant. So my tapas restaurant philosophy still stands with them being very poor values in my opinion. 5 cocktails, 12 oysters, 2 buns, 2 soups, and a cheeseburger cost just over $200 after tip/taxes and this was for 3 people. Overall, I thought Eventide had some very good food, especially the oysters and soups, and it was worth the wait. But the prices were expensive (not expensive for the east coast like NYC/Boston and even Chicago), the portions were incredibly small, and the 3+ hour wait is a big turnoff. And it is almost a tourist trap. Don’t get me wrong, I think Eventide was very good, but I think I would look at other options the next time I visit Portland solely because of the long wait time.

One of my fraternity brothers and his wife visited Portland back in 2019 and they told me that I had to try out Duckfat as they said it has the best fries ever! And you can check out the Oh Happy Rayz Portland blog post here. Duckfat is pretty much world famous for their fries, but they also serve salads, soups, and paninis so it would be a great place for lunch. I walked down the street to Duckfat right after Eventide as I still had room in my stomach for food. They offered limited indoor dining, outdoor dining under a tent, and carryout. There was no line for indoor/outdoor dining, but I heard the host say that the wait was 1.5-2 hours around 8pm on a Sunday night. Portland doesn’t mess around with their long wait times on weekends! There was a good amount of people in line for carryout and I waited about 15 minutes to order food and another 10 minutes for my fries.

I ordered a large order of fries, a flight of sauces, and an Oxbow Farmhouse Pale Ale for a beer coat. The fries were well priced at $8.75 and the portion size was big. The flight of sauces was only $2.25 and the bottled beer was $6. So very good prices overall in my opinion.

They gave me everything in a bag to go and the fries were piping hot. So the hotel was a good 10-minute walk away and amazingly the fries were still hot when I got back to the hotel room. I split the fries with my parents and my Mom and Dad still say that the fries were the best meal of the trip! I think the Highroller Lobster Co. was my favortie meal, but the fries were literally the best fries I have ever had and they were to die for! They were hot, salty, and fried to perfection. The fries are probably cooked in duckfat, which makes them so good. The sauces were amazing too and each sauce had a distinct flavor. Below are my my sauce rankings:

Thai Chili Mayo: Very balanced between spice and mayo. It was spicy and sweet. I think the spice was from Sriracha.
Curry Mayo: Surprisingly very sweet with a big curry flavor.
Garlic Mayo: Good balance between garlic and mayo.
Truffled Ketchup: House-made ketchup that was very sweet and super garlicky. The garlic was definitely overkill.
Horseradish Mayo: Sweetest horseradish sauce that I have ever had and it was not very spicy. It was decently bitter. I’m not a big fan of horseradish in general though.

Other Things to Do:

We only spent about 2 days in Portland, ME and we couldn’t do everything Portland had to offer. Portland was incredible and it is a must visit if you are ever in Maine! Prices are not that expensive if you are used to big city prices like NYC, Boston, and Chicago. I would even bet that some people from NYC and Boston would say that Portland is cheap when comparing the cost of living to those cities.

Again, Portland is a Foodie’s paradise and there are plenty of restaurants that I didn’t have a chance to try so there are a lot of restaurants on the list below. Below are the things that I didn’t get a chance to do on this trip, but I would love to visit Portland again and do eventually.

Portland Museum of Art: I am not a big fan of art, but apparently Portland is known for their art.
Visit the Historic Victoria Mansion: Originally built in the 1800s, this is for your architecture and interior design buffs.
Visit the Portland Observatory: Built in 1807, it’s the last standing maritime signal tower in the U.S. and offers some of the best oceanfront views.
Explore Peaks Island and other islands in Casco Bay: Take the Casco Bay Island ferry to Peaks Island. It’s a quaint little island that you can explore by walking, driving golf carts, or renting bikes. You can even rent kayaks and go out in the bay.
Explore the lighthouses: There are more lighthouses in Portland other than the Portland Head Light and each of them have their own charm. There is the Portland Breakwater Lighthouse (Bug Light) in Bug Light Park, Cape Elizabeth Lights at Two Lights State Park, and the Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse on the campus of Southern Maine Community College.
Go watch the Maine Red Claws or the Portland Sea Dogs minor league teams: The Maine Red Claws are the Boston Celtics G-League affiliate for basketball. The Portland Sea Dogs are the AA affiliate of the Boston Red Sox for baseball.
Go on a food tour: Portland is a Foodie’s paradise. Speaking of food, check out all of the restaurants and breweries I still want to go to below.
Central Provisions: Small plates & cocktails restaurant.
Scales: Seafood restaurant that has some of the best oysters in the city.
The Shop: Raw Bar & Seafood Market. Known for their $1.50/oysters, which are rated as some of the best oysters in Portland.
Izakaya Minato: Japanese restaurant known for their sushi.
Rose Foods: Known for their bagels.
Salvage BBQ: Rated as one of the best BBQ joints in Portland.
Slab Sicilian Street Food: Rated #90 on the Daily Meal’s 101 best pizzas in the U.S. Has a large outdoor patio with live music and known for their amazing bar program.
Micucci Grocery: Italian grocery store that serves Sicilian-style pizza by the slice during lunchtime. Rated #90 on the Daily Meal’s 101 best pizzas in the U.S.
Pizza by Alex: Serves personal style 10-inch pies since 1960. Cash-only.
Rising Tide Brewery: Brewery with a large outdoor patio.
Shipyard Brewing Co.: Brewery with a variety of brews including the Smashed Pumpkin beer.
Oxbow Brewing Company: Located in the East End neighborhood, Oxbow is known for their farmhouse ales. The Portland location also has the Duckfat Frites Shack where you can get the their world famous fries.
Allagash Brewing Company: Known for their Allagash White beer, which tastes like Blue Moon.