D. Taylor's Food & Travel

“Hello Fresh” is the third of the Meal Delivery services we tried.  Ordering Online ordering is similar to other services. Very easy to accept the suggested meals and relatively easy to change them. The variety was fine; we could select weekly beef, pork, and chicken meals.  Health I like that the front of the recipe card shows the number of calories for the meal. Finding the number of carbs and net carbs requires diving into the website.  Receipt I particularly liked that all of the items for a particular meal were in the bag for that meal. (Some other services had the fresh produce loosely in the big box.)  The recipe cards for several of the items were missing. Going back online, finding the item in my received items, and printing the recipe instructions was frustrating, especially when the Hello Fresh website didn’t know our package was delivered until several hours after I received it and was looking for the recipes.  Quality All of the fresh items were fre...

For our second of the Meal Delivery Services, we tried Blue Apron. We found the service to be a mix of good and bad. Health I found it frustrating that you had to dive several layers into a selection to learn its nutritional value. I like to know the net carbs of a meal. There is plenty of room on the description page to include that information to compare items, but they make you dive several screens down on each item to learn about calories and carbs. Receipt Upon receipt, I always put the meats into a container. Every order has something leak leaving some blood or juice in the bottom of the container. I’m not sure if any of the items were leaking themselves or if they were once in contact with another package that was leaking. In any event, the apparent leakage was disconcerting.   Quality We had difficulty with some of the food quality. The prosciutto in the “Creamy Prosciutto & Tomato Pasta” was a terrible ball of stringy fat. I needed to crisp the prosciutto in a pan...

The “What to eat tonight” question is always an issue in our house. I like good food, and I’m growing to appreciate healthy food, but I’m getting tired of trying to figure it out and cooking the same old things. So, we decided to try a meal subscription service. I plan to try six different services and see what I like the best. I started with Green Chef, partly because they claim to be the  “#1 Meal Kit for Eating Well” and were the first service I received an introductory discount after deciding to do it.  Online First, you select a meal plan. Green Chef has 20 different preferences, including Vegan, Keto, Vegetarian, Pescatarian, and Meat. (I chose Meat.) Next, you select the number of people being fed, in my case two, then the number of meals per week you want from them (I picked four). It is also easy to skip a week. BBQ Pork Meatloaf & Cabbage Apple Slaw Photo courtesy Green Chef Variety Based upon your meal plan, they provide “preselected” meals. Typically, the meat ...

Background We were heading back from a visit to Bridgton along Route 302 and thought we’d stop for brunch. Kelley’s Sebago Diner was a perfect place to stop. An easy turn into and ample parking. Kelley’s is open seven days a week, 7 am to 2 pm every day except Sunday when they close a 1 pm. Arrival We arrived a little after noon and were seated quickly. We opted for the “sunroom” and found it cheerful on a beautiful summer day. Ordering With a name like “Kelley’s,” I figured that the Corned Beef Hash and eggs would be a safe bet to be great. Then I saw the “specials” menu and ordered a Chorizo Hash Omelet instead. My wife was in the mood for a BLT with the bacon well-done/crispy, and she thought she’d try onion rings. (We are still on the search for the world’s best onion rings .) Rather than order extra bacon on the sandwich, she ordered an extra side of bacon, which is usually more economical.  Food The BLT was amazing. It was thick-cut bacon, well done as she asked, and plenty o...

Tequilera’s Mexican Restaurant (Mexicantina) is the third restaurant to occupy this site at 183 US Route 1 in Scarborough over the past four or five years. I regularly enjoyed The Egg and went to the First Light restaurant that replaced it a few times. This was our second visit to Tequilera’s; the first time was shortly after they opened. Arrival We arrived just before noon for lunch and were seated right away. After a few minutes, we asked to be moved as the booth we were sitting at wasn’t nailed down and rocked whenever we moved. Also, the booth seats were extremely low and uncomfortable. There were only two other tables occupied at the time. Ordering The waiter took our order, a Chile Relleno and a Quesadilla Grande with Beef. He didn’t write it down. Sure enough, a few minutes later, he came back to ask, “was that chicken or beef?” My wife was happy because she wouldn’t have to return the plate as she did on our first visit. Food My Chile Relleno was quite good. More traditional th...

I wanted to surprise my wife with brunch at the Artemisia Café in Portland. She worked in the building 40 years ago when she taught the foundry course at the Portland School of Art. As such, it was a trip down memory lane for her as the Artemisia Café is in what was once the silver smithing studio.   Artemisia Café   ( Photo courtesy of Google Maps ) We arrived in the area about opening but couldn’t find a place to park. When we found parking, the restaurant was packed with no tables available and an expected 40-minute wait for a table.  Rather than waiting outside, we decided to sit at their bar.  Pre-ordering Erin mixed a great Bloody Mary; she was also fun to talk with. The drinks were excellent and priced nicely.  Ordering We ordered with the expectation we’d be eating at the bar; however, before our food arrived, a table opened up and we were able to relocate to it. I ordered the “Smash Burger,” and my wife ordered the Bene, served with home fries and extra...