Threatened by coronavirus, city’s restaurants turn tables
Creativity and customer support, along with government aid, helped Portland restaurants stay in business at a higher rate than other parts of the country, but dozens have yet to reopen their doors and almost all have losses to recoup.
This is the first of five parts in our series on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Portland’s restaurants.
In mid-March 2020, the staff at Becky’s Diner in Portland feverishly prepared for St. Patrick’s Day, an extraordinarily busy time at the waterfront restaurant when everyone wants corned beef and cabbage.
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Which type of clam chowder is best? The debate is alive and well
For decades, New England partisans – and don t forget New Yorkers – have debated the matter, bickering over specifications like cream, tomatoes, salt pork and roux.
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Dick Varano, owner of Billy’s Chowder House in Wells, with a bowl of the restaurant’s New England style clam chowder. The debate about which style chowder is best rages on.
Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer
I still remember the worst clam chowder I’ve ever had. For years, I was a judge at Portland’s Great Chili and Chowder Challenge at the Holiday Inn by the Bay, an annual February fundraiser that, even during snowstorms, drew large crowds of chowder lovers eager to taste chowders of all kinds prepared by Portland chefs. We sampled a lot of wonderful steamy, creamy, classic New England chowders, but the one I remember best had the consistency of wallpaper paste. The “broth” was gluey and tasted more like the flour it had been thic