Beale Street BBQ boasts southern authenticity

Ben AppÉtit: Portland's Bao Bao wins as a late night dining option

When it comes to food and entertainment, Brunswick has a surprising number of good options for its size. On any given night, a stir-crazy Bowdoinite need only walk down Maine Street for a great meal, a movie at Eveningstar (sometimes Frontier), or even a wholesome round of candlepin bowling. After a few outings in town, however, one unfortunate truth becomes increasingly apparent: late-night dining is nearly impossible.
As someone who plans his days entirely around food, I will not surrender to the reality that my all-important fourth meal can only come from the Campus Food Truck, Domino’s or my own toil in the kitchen.
While Brunswick has limited late-night dining, many Portland eateries stay open far after the final showtime at Nickelodeon Cinemas.
Bao Bao, located at 113 Spring Street in Portland, is the ultimate late-night dining experience for the underage, budget-conscious college student. The new brainchild of Cara Stadler, chef-owner of Brunswick’s award-winning Tao Yuan, Bao Bao is the dumpling house Maine doesn’t know it has been missing.
Though Portland residents have kept the restaurant busy every night since it opened in October, Brunswick should follow Stadler’s lead and get down to Portland once in a while.
Last week, I followed up the mind-blowing spectacle that is “Birdman” with a plate of deep fried pork buns, a spicy bowl of wontons and a cool Asian slaw. If I were telling you all of this in person, I would probably just stop there and say something stupid like “’nuff said.”
Luckily, you’ve already read this far, so you’re basically my captive audience. Allow me to wax poetic about the aforementioned foodstuffs.
Imagine a slaw—cool like Andre 3000, but not quite “ice cold”— with a vinegary dressing that awakens the taste buds with fresh, crunchy cabbage and carrots that accompany chewy peanuts and frizzled shallots in each bite. Pair that with a doughy deep-fried bomb of savory-sweet minced pork, topped with scallions and Japanese spiced (togarashi) aioli, and you’ve got a transcendent late-night combo for only $7.
For a dumpling fix, try some wontons filled with hearty pork and light chives. Served with bean sprouts and scallions in a delicious broth with subtle hints of numbing spice (probably szechuan pepper), these wontons pack a perfect kick of heat for your midnight craving. It should be noted that Bao Bao’s late-night menu has a limited selection compared to the eight dumpling varieties available during the day, but these wontons seem worthy representatives of the establishment’s daytime specialty.
It is abundantly clear at Bao Bao that Stadler knows what she is trying to accomplish. From deliberate decorative choices—giant metal dragon on one wall, stunning photographs of modern China on the other—to an impressive Maine-meets-Asia drinks menu and special late-night options, Stadler’s experiment succeeds in providing diners with a unique gourmet comfort food experience.
The focus on dumplings—a food so perfect that every culture has its own version—gives Bao Bao a simplicity, affordability and approachability that Tao Yuan can sometimes lack.
Bao Bao is a great way to experience Stadler’s ingenuity first-hand, the ultimate post-movie bite, and the perfect end to any night out in Portland. Tao Yuan will continue to draw Bowdoin crowds on family weekend, as it should, but Bao Bao can be your cheat code to unlocking Stadler’s award-winning cuisine on a budget.

Ben AppÉtit: SchoolHouse Café focuses on the food

February is an interesting month for many reasons. With campus in a nearly perpetual post-blizzard state, daily priorities have adapted to the landscape. Focusing on the essentials—like navigating to class, getting meals, and staying warm—requires considerable energy when Brunswick resembles the ice planet Hoth.
This is the month that Bowdoin admissions often forgets to mention when advertising our fine institution to hopeful prospies, instead opting to remind everyone of our high quality of life rankings and unparalleled Dining Services. While we can agree those accolades make total sense, the primal day-to-day in the wintry tundra is an exceptional case that calls for an exceptional remedy, one that goes far beyond the realm of necessity to a place of solid comfort. If there’s anything less necessary and more comfortable than brunch, I haven’t found it yet.
For many, the very concept of brunch is hard to fully grasp. Is it just late breakfast? Is it glorified hangover food? Is it an American bourgeois dream/nightmare? While the answer to all these questions may very well be yes, Bowdoin offers us the luxury of bi-weekly brunches on the meal plan and most students get pretty excited to discuss their weekend exploits over eggs and French toast. Even at Moulton and Thorne, brunch comes loaded with a set of associations that make it different from all other meals. In Harpswell, however, SchoolHouse Café single-handedly justifies the existence of this enigmatic meal with a menu that combines creativity and familiarity at an affordable price.
In a Goldilocks scenario where dining hall brunches are almost too predictable and big city brunches collapse under the weight of their own hype, brunch at Schoolhouse Café feels just right. After a short drive down Harpswell Neck Road, I stepped into a space that at once felt modern and classic, with lots of natural lighting, bookshelves filled with old-school board games, and a tastefully vibrant color scheme. At first glance, I could already tell that this place wasn’t selling a gimmicky brunch experience, but instead presenting solid food in an unpretentious setting.
The ever-changing menu—with its local brunch offerings and enticing baked goods—presents a number of hard decisions, but not a single wrong one. If you need advice on your decision (or even if you don’t) take some time to talk to your server, who will break down any dish into every detail and likely share intimate knowledge of the food’s origin. Our server had an anecdote about a “heavyset gentleman from Tennessee” who suggested the addition of chili pepper bits to the cornbread, and verified the seasonality of the delicious roasted tomatoes with an enthusiastic description of the café’s own year-round greenhouse.
I was pleasantly surprised, especially at this line of latitude, to find some great huevos rancheros, which delivered subtly spicy warm salsa with chewy corn tortillas and bright yellow over-easy eggs. Also in the egg department, SchoolHouse perfectly executes a three egg soft scramble that could rival any omelet preparation in consistency and variety of ingredient choices. Resist the urge to get toast as a side, especially if the alternative is anything like the fluffy cream cheese-chive biscuit I encountered on my visit.
Like any brunch worth its salt, a meal at SchoolHouse Café has enough sweet offerings to balance out the savories. Though cookies and cakes are available up at the counter, the cinnamon twist French toast and muffin bread pudding on the menu fall just shy of dessert-level sweetness. If you want to embrace the true spirit of brunch and accompany your eggs, hash browns, and bacon with some syrupy goodness, these pancake-type options are all available as half orders.
My objective here, clearly, is to make you crave the wonderful local fare that SchoolHouse Café has to offer. If you’re not already jealous of those in-the-know eaters among us, then I probably shouldn’t tell you the reason behind SchoolHouse’s name. Not only does the café serve the public Wednesday-Sunday every week, but they also prepare every single school lunch for the nearby Harpswell Coastal Academy. Those lucky kids get to eat locally sourced, creative, gourmet meals for free every day. So if you’re like me and have something to prove about the supremacy of Bowdoin’s food, here’s your challenge: go to SchoolHouse Café and then decide who holds the cafeteria championship title.

Ben AppÉtit

Beale Street BBQ boasts southern authenticity

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

Ben Miller

Columnist

December 5, 2014

Photo courtesy of Ben Miller

SOUTHERN COMFORT: Bowdoin students looking for a heaping plate of savory ribs can head down to Beale Street Barbeque in Bath, ME.

It’s that time of year again. I know what you’re thinking, but rest assured that I’m not prematurely suggesting any yuletide, Maccabean or Kwanzaa-related feasts. Rather, I am referring to the gustatory gap between Thanksgiving and peak holiday season where many Bowdoin students sustain their morale only with fond flashbacks of gravy-drenched turkey and daydreams of the coming late-December feasts.

I think this lull in culinary excitement is poorly timed. With the combined onslaught of upcoming exams and treacherous weather, it only makes sense that Polar Bears should find indulgence somewhere amidst the hardship. A quick trip to Beale Street Barbecue in nearby Bath can help us all traverse the pre-finals fjord with some comfort food.
My own inspiration for finding decent Southern fare near Bowdoin came from a conversation with the illustrious Evan Montilla ’17, who was born and raised in Mississippi.

Though you may know him as one third of Treefarm, one twelfth of Ursus Verses or one whole of his solo act, the down home dreamboat also has a classically-trained palate for all things barbecue. Singing and making strange percussive noises gets me very hungry (that’s normal, right?), so it was only natural when I asked Evan to share his wisdom during a late-night a cappella rehearsal.

“To be honest, I haven’t even tried to find good barbecue up here,” he told me as a single tear welled up and dropped from his eye.

Alas, I hadn’t bothered to seek out any slow-smoked delicacies either. In my mind, Maine had its regional specialties, some solid international offerings and not much else. But talking to Evan made me wonder: if Maine is the “South of the North,” then shouldn’t some Southern-style dining be a perfect fit?

Though I am no bona fide Southerner, my hometown boasts several joints that challenge the regional limits of good barbecue. If New York City can pull it off, maybe BBQ also has a home in Maine. With that hunch, I was determined to find some Southern comfort food to satisfy our craving, authenticity be damned. What we found at Beale Street Barbecue exceeded our expectations.

The short drive into Bath’s historic downtown felt like a road trip, nay, a veritable quest for smoky meaty goodness in the frozen north we call home. Walking in, I noticed the wood pile and barrel smoker set up in the parking lot. This was a good sign. I second-guessed the omen when I saw that the brick-walled interior had plenty of open booths and empty bar stools, but held out further judgment until my take-out order was ready.

Back at Bowdoin, I unveiled the heaping plate of ribs, brisket, corn bread, coleslaw and mashed sweet potatoes. Wordlessly, Evan and I investigated the supposedly Tennessee-inspired meal before us.

After a few moments of reassuring silence, we looked up from our feast and began to over-analyze what we tasted.
“Okay, so the ribs are actually really good,” Evan said. “You can tell that someone in the kitchen is from the South.”
“There’s something crazy about the barbecue sauce, ” I ventured.

Pairing equally well with the spice-rubbed bark on the ribs and the charred seasoning on the sliced brisket, the tangy sauce was—if you’ll excuse the Fieri-ism—boss.

Both the pork and beef were also perfectly smoky and so the prophecy of the barrel-wood smoker proved legitimate. The ribs were textbook-executed in the St. Louis style, with a peppery dry rub that complemented the chewy crimson bark deliciously. Though somewhat lean, the thin-sliced—nearly shredded—brisket was juicy inside and chewy around the edges.

“You can also tell it’s legit because they actually give you solid pickles and onions to go with the brisket,” Evan added.
Admittedly, the coleslaw and mashed sweet potatoes that accompanied our $21 meal for two left something to be desired, but the quality of the meat overwhelmed their mediocrity.

The cornbread, on the other hand, proved polarizing. With subtle hints of jalapeño and a sliced-bread appearance, Evan was less receptive of the starchy sacrament, noting how it was “somewhere between moist and dry.” I enjoyed the dense cornbread, but agreed that recipes usually end up moist and chewy or dry and crumbly.

If Thanksgiving Break can teach us anything positive, it should be an appreciation for slow cooking and voracious eating. Though preparing for finals doesn’t leave much time for the lethargic digestion period that many of us enjoyed after devouring our turkey, I would still recommend Beale Street Barbecue as a great take-out or eat-in option to break up an arduous study schedule.

Though it’s only 15 minutes away, a BBQ jaunt to Bath has the soul-rejuvenating (and artery-clogging) effects of a road trip down South.

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