Foodie Towns?

[OutdoorLover]

Originally Posted by G1..

I admit to not "living" in Maine but we were there in Portland a year ago and I admit to being disappointed . While it is a beautiful town it was way to built up and crowded ,something I just didn't expect in Maine.That was more of what I was trying to get away from.

Portland is a great small city - vibrant economically and culturally, lots of young people, historical and with a nice working waterfront. Portland proper has less than 70K people, but if that's too big, it's the biggest city in the state by far, so there are plenty of smaller cities and towns, many of fewer than 1,000 people if that's what you're looking for, and if that's still too big, there is a good amount of "backwoods living" available for someone who wants to live in a cabin off by themselves.

[Submariner]

Among Maine's 986 towns, it has a lot of towns that fall between 100 and 5,000 population, and hundreds of townships that have less than a dozen population.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

Then there are the towns with populations of zero. Their number is growing. On the margins of the zero populations towns there are some low population towns that serve some extraordinary meals. I had occasion to be on the shore of Crawford Lake today, About 100 yards east of that town line, directly on Route 9.is the Nook and Cranny. It is a small family restaurant and the owners were on these Maine pages a decade ago. You may remember Peachie.

On the north shore of the St Lawrence River and the west shore of the Malbaie River there is a little family restaurant that had the best onion soup I have ever had - until today. Today, I had a crock of onion soup at the Nook and Cranny and it was the best onion soup I have ever had. I am active on a few forums and some of my signatures end with "and a fine judge of onion soup." Today's all time best onion soup was followed by their beef and bleu. Which I already knew was the best burger in Maine.

A tip of the hat to Peachie and her now adult daughter. It may not meet the criteria for a Maine foodie town, but they have a great back woods restaurant and it's directly on Route 9, only 80 miles east of Bangor. Half way across to Bangor is the Airline Diner which has great pies for dessert. There is a sign on the wall that says, "All complaints must be accompanied by cash."

[OutdoorLover]

If you're on Mt Desert Island and you love blueberry or mixed berry pie, I can vouch for Island Bound Treats, a little shop on Main St in Southwest Harbor - as I recall it's a small building right next to her house. I went there after seeing that she had an *average* rating of 5-out-5 stars from every online rating site for those pies, and yes, they are that good! While it's hard to make a bad pie, making a truly great pie is another matter, and these are heaven :-)

[Northern Maine Land Man]

Last year about June 21, we were camped at Mt. Desert campground and a van came through every night after supper selling whole pies. They were awesome. This was on my wife's bucket list. She was a diabetic and I said to go ahead and have pie a la mode. Nobody is ever going to crab at you about your sugar level. She thoroughly enjoyed that pie.

She was in hospice care and we made the most of the time she had left. Jordan Pond House for popovers. She died at sunrise on Sunday, july 9. There is no rule that says you have to be miserable in hospice care. We were both advanced EMTs, had lived in the same house for 35 years and were well known in town. We knew the hospice folks. They trusted us to manage her care.

[maineguy8888]

Originally Posted by OutdoorLover

Portland is a great small city - vibrant economically and culturally, lots of young people, historical and with a nice working waterfront. Portland proper has less than 70K people, but if that's too big, it's the biggest city in the state by far, so there are plenty of smaller cities and towns, many of fewer than 1,000 people if that's what you're looking for, and if that's still too big, there is a good amount of "backwoods living" available for someone who wants to live in a cabin off by themselves.

Portland has sprawled so much that there is no longer any division between it and all the surrounding cities and town. There is no way to tell where Portland ends and the next town begins now, unless you see the road signs.
So 150,000 people are in what people informally call Portland. (And once Windham, Gorham and Biddeford/Saco are fully linked up in a few years, you can add another 75,000 people).

[winnfarm1947]

Belfast is fast becoming a foodie town.