Sunday, February 27, 2011

Duckfat - Restaurant Review

Dave, Tyler and I went into Portland last night to see a concert, and since medical students don't eat unless they are forced to, we went to dinner. Tyler suggested Duckfat, and given our new-found love of duck anything, we went there.

What Duckfat is known primarily for, apparently, is, you guessed it, duck fat. Their signature dish is a cone of "classic Belgian fries made with local Maine potatoes fried in duck fat". We each got some of those, and they are fantastic. Best fries I have ever eaten. They also come with many different kinds of dipping sauce, including truffle ketchup (amazing), Thai Chili Mayo (good and spicy) and sweet and spicy mustard (would be better on a sandwich, but still good). Dave and I also split a cup of the soup of the day, which was sweet potato with candied ginger - sweet and smooth with just a hint of a bite.

For entree, we each got a panini, and as usual, split them. Dave got the duck confit panini (naturally), with shreaded duck, kimchi and sweet chili sauce. He complained about the kimchi not being authentic, but this was, in my opinion, a very good thing. Real kimchi is a rather deadening taste, and if you want to actually enjoy what you are eating, putting red pepper on it isn't the best idea. All in all, a tasty sandwich. I liked mine better though - roast turkey with brie and cranberry fennel relish. As I'm sure you can tell from all of the recipes here, if it has brie or cranberries in it, I love it. As this sandwich had both, it was pretty much perfect.

For dessert I got beignets with chocolate sauce - the beignets had a slight lemon flavor that added a nice zest to the fried dough - and Dave had churros - the chocolate sauce for those had some red pepper in it and I was tempted to drink what was left over. Dave even offered me his straw. I declined. I am kind of regretting it.

All in all, a great dinner, and pretty cheap - under $50 for 2 each of drinks, appetizers, entrees and desserts. We will definitely got here again.

And finally, since the concert was our reason for going to Portland in the first place, we saw Flogging Molly! We missed the first opening act, The Drowning Men but did have the privilege of seeing the second, the Moneybrothers. We spent most of their set trying to determine where the lead singer is from. His accent ranged from Albanian to Tommy Wiseau - turns out he is actually from Sweden. The music was... interesting. Either the sound system was not checked properly for them, or they normally sound like a car accident in Hell.

Flogging Molly, however, was awesome. I'd never seen them before, although I'd heard many concert stories from a good friend of mine (including one where he was dropped on his head while crowd surfing). They played for a surprisingly long time (just over 2 hours), and included a number of songs from their upcoming album, Speed of Darkness. They also played a lot of old favorites, and those I can remember are linked below (so you can pretend you were there too).

Black Friday Rule, Wanderlust, Devil's Dance Floor, Drunken Lullabies, What's Left of the Flag, The Worst Day Since Yesterday, Float, If I Ever Leave This World Alive, Tobacco Island, Requiem for a Dying Song,

To my great delight, they finished with my favorite song, Seven Deadly Sins!

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