Some of restaurant critic Andrew Ross’s favorite things

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While walking around my neighborhood, I passed a blue sedan, the driver of which was talking to a woman standing in the street. Beside the open window on the driver’s side, she shielded her eyes from the setting sun as she said goodbye to the man inside. “Remember, tonight is your night to go get dinner,” she said, then added, “If you show up with another bag of Italians and a bottle of Coke, Philip, I will. kick you out. ” She laughed. He does not have.

Dear Philippe, if you are still my neighbor, maybe I could help you.

Like you, I have nothing against Italians (or Coke), but for the past few months I’ve been keeping a diary of some of the best things I’ve tasted. I know if I were your roommate or landlord I would be surprised and delighted if you came home with a bag containing any of these four items. Oh, and if I spot your car on the street, I’ll be sure to slip a copy of this article under your wipers.

The Cheese Iron Celeriac Remoulade. Photo of Vince Maniaci and Merry Lubking

The Cheese Iron in Scarborough Celeriac Remoulade ($ 9.99 / lb)

Normally my family and friends know in advance what I’m likely to include on my recurring list of the best things I’ve tasted. There is nothing I enjoy better than sharing delicious food and drink with friends, and they are usually the beneficiaries. But there are exceptions.

Last month, looking for a big chunk of robiola cheese that I needed for a recipe, I stopped by The Cheese Iron. I’ve never visited the boutique and its maximalist collection of ingredients, wines, cheeses and sandwiches without making at least one impulse buy. This time around, I grabbed a jar of their homemade celery remoulade, a classic French side dish made with grated celery, Dijon mustard and mayonnaise. Less liquid than coleslaw, its German cousin, celeriac remoulade can play the role of a salad, an appetizer or a starch, sometimes all three at the same time.

Cheese Iron’s remoulade is a bit unusual, leaving out the mustard and instead incorporating fresh thyme, capers and tiny spots of chopped pickle to balance the creaminess of their homemade mayo. I may never look at a knotty celery again without imagining it stripped and grated in the kitchen at The Cheese Iron.

Here’s how good it is: I intended to serve the remoulade with a roast chicken that night, but had to slip in a little taste once in my car. One bite led to two, and before I even got out of the store parking lot, the remoulade was gone. Too mortified to come back for another tub, I left and made a mental note to pick up two on my return. Reader, consider doing the same.

Tourtière at Part & Parcel. Photo by Danielle O’Neill

Part & Parcel pork pie in Biddeford ($ 25)

If the cold along the North Atlantic had an official dish, it would be tourtière. Originally a traditional French-Canadian savory pie filled with potatoes and minced or shredded meat, tourtière immigrated across the border a long time ago and has become a long-standing specialty of New Brunswick. -England in its own right. And really, when dual citizenship tastes so good, who can complain?

I ate some memorable meat pies in Maine, including a medieval-sounding venison and pheasant pie at a farm restaurant in Fryeburg. (Beautiful, but very mellow.)

This month at Part & Parcel in Biddeford, I found out which might be the best meat pie I’ve tried. Baker Fionna Richardson bakes uncooked pies for customers to end up in their home ovens. Each family tourtière is packaged, labeled with clear and simple cooking instructions and, as it is packed for you by the cashier, tucked away in the bag with a small container of flaky Maldon salt.

Richardson’s Tourtière is a clean reformulation of a family recipe handed down for four generations. His eliminates herbal seasonings like sage and rosemary in favor of pure hot spices: nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon. She also deploys a Rose Levy Berenbaum tip in her crust, incorporating a bit of cream cheese alongside iced butter to ensure the dough stays tender.

Bake this pie for an hour, and your whole house will smell like a scene from Currier and Ives, and you haven’t even reached the best part: eating. It’s easy to see why Richardson’s grandmother, who transcribed her own mother’s recipe decades ago, asks for a pie every Christmas.

“Her mother was unable to read and write, and she passed the recipe on to her, so for her it’s very special,” Richardson told me. “She always tells me mine is ‘just OK’ which is cute, because the real story is that she always keeps asking for another the next year!”

Jackrabbit’s Cardamom Bun in Biddeford ($ 4.50)

A few blocks from Biddeford, Chef Bowman Brown tells a similar story about someone he wowed with a slightly iconoclastic take on a classic dish. Brown’s casual new cafe-bakery, Jackrabbit, draws inspiration from the same sources as its award-winning fine-dining restaurant, Elda (which recently reopened in a lush upstairs space). Both restaurants are nominally Nordic with a hint of Japanese influence here and there.

Take his cardamom buns. At first glance, they look a lot like a traditional Swedish kardemummabullar, although they might be baked darker than the tightly twisted or knotted pastries you’ll find in Stockholm. But when you tear one up, beneath the sweet crust you discover a pale yeast dough sprinkled with uneven freckles of ground green cardamom. The balance between crispy exterior, ductile interior and sheer intensity of flavor is extraordinary.

The secret? Brown borrows the same tangzhong technique that gives Japanese shokupan (milk bread) its remarkable lift and softness. When its dough is rolled with sugar and butter, it stays soft on the inside, even after the rolls have been baked to a dark brown and dipped in lemon syrup.

“We had a Swedish customer who came by when we first opened and told us we were cooking them too dark and crisp,” Brown told me. “But she kept coming back, and we finally won her over.”

Add me to the count of other converts.

Makku, a popular Korean drink made from white rice and now available in Portland. Photo by Andrew Ross

Sun Market Makku makgeolli ($ 12.89 for 4 cans)

I don’t have a lot of regrets, but one of them is that I didn’t sign up for a one-day course at “Makgeolli University” in Seoul in 2011. Now closed, the company offered short courses of selecting, pairing, and even brewing South Korea’s ever popular drink. Stupidly, I thought I’d educate myself on the cloudy white rice drink – a sweet-tangy mix between wine and beer – when I got home to the US I ended up not tasting it anymore. at makgeolli before 2019.

When I saw on Sejong and Ji Park’s Instagram feed that the couple, owners of Sun Market on Congress Street in Portland, had started wearing a household version of the lacto-fermented drink, I almost dropped my smartphone. . With trembling fingers, I called the store and placed an order for a four-pack of the regular (plain) variety.

Sejong Park told me that because its alcohol content (around 6% alcohol by volume) lies in the limbo between beer and wine, makgeolli has always been impossible to find in Maine. But alongside the recent surge in popularity of IPA beers reaching around 7% blood alcohol content, it makes sense that the makgeolli stalemate will eventually end.

Equally important is the multi-state expansion of American makgeolli brewer Makku. Founded in 2017 by New Yorker Carol Pak, Makku produces a traditional take on makgeolli alongside a fruit-enriched product line including flavors of blueberry, passion fruit and mango.

I’m sure the fruity makgeolli is great, but I’m in love with the regular Makku. When I got my hand on a can, I gave it a gentle shake to mix the white rice sediment into the drink, then poured myself a frothy glass and drank it while eating a plate of flaming buldak chicken. from cookbook author and YouTube celebrity Maangchi.

Makgeolli is a versatile pairing for many other dishes – everything from beef stew and veggie burgers to ramen (my favorite snack right now) to spicy Sichuan spiced peanuts ($ 2.39, also at the Sun Market). ). What is Korean for “sky”?

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