The Rosa Restaurant - Portsmouth, NH

You know that you have a favorite local place that is your go-to place for when you really-should-cook-at-home-but-are-just-too-lazy nights. That place for us is, more times than most, The Rosa Restaurant in Portsmouth, NH on State Street just before the bridge to Kittery. It is ½ a block from Prescott Park.

We order out pizza most frequently, but sometimes we get one entrée and split it. You get a salad and bread with the entrée, and we frequently have enough left for lunch the next day.

The pizza is thin crust, so if you like thick crust – order something else! Our favorite is fresh tomato, black olive and sausage. They’ll pretty much make whatever you want.

We also frequently order pasta puttanesca on angel hair, sometimes with chicken added – sometimes not. I know, it’s not on the menu. Just ask for it – that’s the kind of place that Rosa’s is. If I’m in a really pig-out mood, I’ve gotten the puttanesca with sausage. Their chicken Rosa is also very good. It is boneless chicken chunks with tomatoes, onion, garlic, olives, mushrooms, and prosciutto served over the pasta of your choice.

They have a salad that is always a good choice: Mesclun greens and baby spinach tossed with dried cranberries, pecans, fresh orange, and orange vinaigrette. They call it a mixed green salad, but it is a lot more than just greens.

Vignola - Portland, ME - Delicious

Four of us ate at this wonderful little place in the Old Port section of Portland this past weekend. We have eaten here before and have always been satisfied. There was more emphasis on pizza and, at least my impression, slightly less emphasis on seafood dishes. There were scallop and cod entrée, but I seem to remember a few more choices in this area before. [For really exceptional seafood, Street & Company is right around the corner]
I was very happy with what I ordered. I started with a baby spinach salad with little beets on the side - light and tasty. My entrée was a fettuccini tossed with onion, oyster mushrooms, broccoli rabe, and frizzled cubes of pancetta. There was no heavy sauce - just the fresh flavors of the vegetables and the smoky, salty pancetta. Really good. They had two Chianti classico choices, so we had a great wine with the meal too.

Firefly Cafe - Savannah - Highly Recommeded

This place is fantastic. We've been there 2x for dinner and once for breakfast. Tonight's meal was truly wonderful. One of us had the chopped salad and a bowl of the Firefly corn and crab chowder, "one of the best soups I've ever had!" One of us had Rissoto Della, with shrimp, fresh spinach, chopped tomato, parmesan and feta cheese, onion, and a sprinkling of mint - out of this world.
The breakfast of "dressed up hash-browns" was filling and super tasty - hash browns mixed with grilled corn, onion, red and green pepper, and topped with cheese.
Check out their website - http://www.fireflycafega.com/
You will remember your meal here.

Dockside Daves (St. Pete) - Highly Recommended

Wow, is the food here good. This is a typical local fish shack. In New England we are used to plastic "silverware" and "glasses"; here, at least, you get metal and glass! We ate at both the St. Pete beach and the Mideira Beach locations and liked the St. Pete location a little more.
The fried shrimp are close to perfect. We had them both with the regular batter and with the "country fried" batter, which is less puffy and has more pepper in it. The onion rings are a food group of their own here, and the waffle fries are very good. They also serve sangria with powdered cinnamon - a first for me and very good. Another time we tried the country fried grouper - very good but a little over cooked for my taste - I like almost all fish on the slightly underdone side.
I would definitely recommend driving out of your way to either of these places for really fresh seafood.

Central Avenue Oyster Bar (St. Pete)- Recommended with a few reservations

Four of us ate at this restaurant the other night - primarily positive experience. Here is the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The good - the oysters were both delicious, beautifully presented, and very reasonable. Two of us had the panko fried shrimp - also very good. Finally, one person had a special that day, sea bass served with a delicious, subtle cream sauce. We went for the seafood, so we were happy.
The interior was intimate and cozy without feeling too dark or closed in.
The bad - the service was good - not stellar. We had to drive to the restaurant to make reservations - not a very customer friendly practice. The drinks we ordered were OK - again not stellar.
The ugly - the meals were served with a vegetable mix that tasted like they had started in a can and then were boiled for an hour. Way overcooked, mushy, without flavor. This was a big disappointment.

Grouper - an ugly fish

I told you earlier how I found 1,264 ways of serving grouper down here in St. Pete. Thought I'd illustrate my blog with pictures of what I'm talking about. I don't know how cool it will be to take photos of my meal in a restaurant, but I can take pictures of the front of the place - fur shur.

Welcome to my blog

Dear reader,
While this is all new to me, I look forward to talking about food and good times especially in New England.
Having said that, I am presently sitting in St. Petersburg, Florida. I have found some wonderful places to eat through other people's blogs, and I have been disappointed once. I have tried some food that I've never had before - always exciting for the taste buds - and have had some old favorites.
I quickly realized that grouper is the staple of many dishes down here. I've seen it grilled, fried, simple, fancy - I even had it poached in a curry coconut sauce at one Italian restaurant here.
BTW, the restaurant was good enough to deserve a mention. It is the Primi Urban Grill, downtown on 4th near Central. There were 6 of us at dinner and no one was disappointed. Two in our party had one of the specials - wild mushroom ravioli - and they were, indeed, exceptional.
I'm only here a few more days and then return to the freezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzing coast of New Hampshire.