Maine Foodie Tours Review

     One of our absolute favorite activities is to take a walking tour of the area we are visiting. And if the walking tour includes, history, food and alcohol we are in TOTAL heaven. For our trip to Portland we booked a foodie tour of the old port area. Staring at 10:30 am at the Old Port Wine Shop (what a PERFECT starting point for us two), This a great little wine shop with some very eclectic wine. You should definitely make a stop if your in the area.

      Our first official stop was Vervacious, right next door, http://www.vervacious.com/. This is a great gourmet shop of flavored salts and vinegars. We had a really nice sampling including Anise salt sprinkled on apples YUM and chocolate balsamic vinegar and a nice mead wine. Some pics of Vervacious and the walk to our next stop.

      From there we walked to a great little mixed use market with several different vendors sharing the rent on one building (pizza, sandwiches, beer store, cupcakes) and our stop was for a selection of great local Maine cheeses. We continued our walk and went next to Stonewall Kitchens, http://www.stonewallkitchen.com/, now a giant food emporium but originally started by two people to sell homemade Blueberry jam. And what else to eat but fresh baked blueberry scones topped with the now world famous jam. Heres a quick pic;

      After another walk, (good thing we were able to walk off some of these goodies), through the historic old port area, we were in a locals only fish store, the Harbor Fish Market, http://www.harborfish.com/about.php. This is the exact kind of store I would visit every week if I live here. Tons of extremely fresh fish, the boats deliver at the back of the store, that FRESH. We tasted some incredible smoked fish made in Maine and we ended up going back later and buying three packs.

      From there it was off for chocolate, YUM!! We stopped a a teeny, tiny little shop called Dean's Sweets, http://deanssweets.com,  making incredible truffles. The ginger/wasabi was to die for. From there, time for some more sweets, over to the Two Fat Cats bakery, http://twofatcatsbakery.com/,  for one incredible whoopie pie. And our final stop, liquid refreshments at the Shipyard Brewery, http://www.shipyard.com/, While I am not a huge fan of Shipyard beers, this was a fun and informative stop. Last set of pics;

      This was an incredible walking tour, one we would highly recommend. I give Maine Foodie Tours an A Plus.

General Store Cafe Review

      This will be a quick review, mainly because we stopped here for breakfast, and I have sort of forgotten what we all had. Needless to say, this is a funky kind of place, part general store, part gift shop, and big part breakfast and lunch place. You stand in line to order, (and on weekends the line can be LONG), then get a country flag for your table and the server brings you your food, (our country was Wisconsin, go figure*S*).

      After all the food from the day before I wasn't really hungry, so I went with my old stand by, bagel, cream cheese and bacon (smoked in this case). Around the table, there was also a fresh blueberry and walnut pancake, an Italian sausage omelet and scrambled eggs with cinnamon toast topped with maple cream cheese, YUM!! Unfortunately, once again brain freeze caused me to forget to take pictures of the actual food. But I did get a pic of the building;

      This was a fun little place and appears to be a destination breakfast place, as Spring Green is kind of small and out of the way, but the place was PACKED.  Would I travel way up here for breakfast, probably not, but then again I am a very simple breakfast guy. I just can't eat a giant omelet or a huge stack of pancakes, give me some toast and peanut butter (Oh, not that this has anything to do with anything, but Dean made some INCREDIBLE homemade bread for breakfast, Thanks again). But, if you plan a day like we did and do breakfast, some shopping, stop at a nice park and then tour Taliesin (post coming soon) then it is a really great day.

On a scale of 1 to 5;
Food,                Quality means much more to us than quantity.

Beer and Wine,  Based on selection and pricing

Service,             Speaks for itself
Ambiance,          Does the look fit the food and pricing 

Price,                 And finally does the pricing equal the results we had.

Food,                     4  Everything was really good. Yes, it was breakfast, but suprisingly easy to mess up.

Beer and Wine,    0  C'mon it's breakfast, Geez I know its vacation but even we have a limit
Service,                 3 This was a tough one, as really there are no waiters. I knocked it down, not because we waited in line for a long time, that's because its popular, but because once we ordered it took quite awhile to get our food. Again, its breakfast so it should be quicker. Everyone was really friendly though.

Ambiance,             4  Great, its a funky old building with lots of rooms and a screened porch and an outdoor porch. Oh, and once a year they have a concert out back called Bob Fest, where all the bands play Bob Dylan songs ,how cool is that ?

Price,                     4 Once again, need I remind you, it was breakfast. But the price were very reasonable for the quality and quantity we got.

Overall,                3.75 A very good breakfast place (and I guess lunch is even better), if your in the area stop by, or plan a full day like we did.

      Finally, a small park we stopped at on the way to Taliesin. Right on the Wisconsin river, with some great sand banks. Looks like it would be a fun spot to go tubing or kayaking. Enjoy;