Tag: Micucci

US Trip 23 September to 8 October, Day Twelve: Relaxing In Portland Maine, Not Least Tennis, Micucci Pizza, Our Sun Trap Terrace & Dinner With Susan & Bill, 4 October 2025

Pickleball seems to be de rigueur on the Portland tennis courts

We played tennis for the first time at the Eastern Prominade. 6-2, 2-4 in my favour. Most people play pickleball there now. We got there a little early and had a nice lady explain pickleball to us.

Tennis for me, thanks all the same.

Then we played a good game of tennis in that lovely setting.

After tennis and a shower, we went to Micucci to buy some charcuterie & cheeses for Sunday. Also to try their much vaunted pizza for lunch – one big pizza slice between the two of us was more than plenty.

I don’t normally dig pizza, but this simple (half) pizza slice was just the ticket for lunch

We relaxed on the terrace of our lovely Munjoy Hill apartment in the afternoon…

…ahead of an early evening meet up with Susan Gorman and her partner Bill at Woodford F&B, in mid-town Portland.

It was lovely to meet Susan (my Keele flatmate Alan Gorman’s widow) after several years of correspondence. It was also a pleasure to meet Bill.

We tried Woodford’s famous burgers, which were very good, preceded by a cheese plate to share with a special local cheddar as its centre piece, together with a wild cherry garnish. Janie and I drank a very interesting NY State Gewurtztraminer.

Susan and Bill both had very interesting things to say about local issues in South Maine and wider issues too, of course. They live in Biddeford, which is about 25-30 minutes south of Portland, but Bill had lived in Portland previously.

Indeed, the food, beverages and conversation were so completely absorbing, that our resident culinary photographer (Janie) forgot to take any photos of the occasion, which had her kicking herself afterwards. Actually, an unphotographed meal out is such a rarity these days, I think the absence of photos signifies the very specialness of the occasion.

It was such a pleasure to spend some time with Susan and Bill – they kindly dropped us back at our apartment before they set off for home.

If you want to see all (eleven) photos from this day, click this Flickr link or the photo below:

US Trip 23 September to 8 October, Day Ten: Orientation In Portland Maine, Followed By Dinner At Street & Co., 2 October 2025

Some of the orientation required sitting on our terrace enjoying the sun & the view

Our house was a very very very fine house

We decided to make this an orientation day, so we did a fair bit of walking around but not a lot of things.

Giant cruise ships were regular features in the harbour

I had spotted that we were relatively close to a nice-looking and well reviewed Italian deli, Micucci, so we started our exploration there. After buying a few provisions there (and checking out that we would return for other stuff during our week) we progressed on to have a look at the tennis courts on the Eastern Promenade, which looked well-appointed so I resolved to work out how to book those.

We walked all around the Eastern Promenade and met a really nice lady near the bandstand who gave us some good advice ahead of our Kancamagus trip tomorrow.

Then home again via the convenience store at the top of our street where we stocked up on some basics that Italian delis don’t sell, such as breakfast cereal, bananas and milk.

Street & Co bar

Several of the fancier restaurants were fully booked for this night, but I got us a late evening booking at Street & Co, that looked good for seafood. I also made one or two other bookings for later in our week to be sure to have places to go, as it seems the better places book up.

Street & Co is on the wharf, about 20 minutes walk from our flat. It was a buzzing place and they kept us waiting best part of 30 minutes for our table. But the wait was worth it, as the grub was great. A home-made tomato soup that tasted like an Uber-posh Heinz tomato soup on steroids.

Then, perhaps unwisely, we had the Lobster and seafood linguini dish for two, which comes with a “wrestle-your-own” lobster to share.

That spoon ain’t gonna cut it…

…OK, Ged, start wrestling…

In our defence, I think the chefs had forgotten to crack the claws with their industrial instruments before serving, as the less-industrial tools we were given were not really up to the task. This is partly inadequate work-folk blaming their tools, but I think the waitress realised the error when Janie asked for some help. The dish was utterly delicious though…almost worth the fight…although we think our lobster-wrestling days are behind us now. The “lazy lobster”options look that much more enticing.

There’s a man who knows how to cut a cheesecake

No such fight with the cheesecake, which looked super special and was. We shared one piece and took a second piece home for tomorrow’s “breakfast”. Indulgent? Yes, and why not when we are on holiday? It was the best cheesecake we tasted on the whole of our trip.

If you want to see all the pictures from this day, click this Flickr link or the picture link below.