After 10 months of being disconnected from each other both mentally and physically, Kyle (The Boyfriend) and I needed a serious chance to reconnect. There are plenty of options for this, but no better solution than a intimate and romantic bed and breakfast weekend in some quaint city with cute boutiques and cozy cafes.
After much deliberation, the Pomegranate Inn in Portland, ME became our destination.
Booked for the Saturday and Sunday nights of Easter weekend, Kyle and I made the two hour drive from Boston on Saturday arriving just in time for lunch. With little knowledge of the city, we chose a sandwich shop highly rated on Yelp called Po’Boys and Pickles. Definitely a local dive with cheap, tasty food.
After a round of pulled pork and french fries we took a drive into the area of Portland known as Old Port for some Jack Daniels ice cream at Mount Dessert Island Ice Cream. Uniquely delicious! Certainly began a bit of wonder about the potential alcohol content being distributed to small children. We walked around the neighborhood a bit before heading to the nearest brewery.
Shipyard Brewing Co., pretty well known throughout New England, has a nice little touristy shop filled with t-shirts, beer glasses, and a ton of brews! After an amusing film narrated by strange animated sailors and a quick tour, we settled in for a tasting next to a ginormous pregnant woman, poor lady was dragged along by her cruel boyfriend to watch as we savored the variety of beers. The beer was very good. My favorites were the brown ale, the summer ale, and an apricot ale that tasted more like a fruit cocktail than a beer. Kyle leaned a bit more to the darker, stronger brews. After stocking up on a variety pack we headed over to the inn.
Decor from the Shipyard Brewery. Not my style, but Kyle found it quite impressive.
Upon entering we were given the grand tour of the downstairs, a comfortable dining room with bright red and yellow accents, beautiful rugs and chairs from far off lands, and large bright windows, an equally large and bright sitting room where tea and cookies are served daily filled with inviting couches and chairs, and a stunning foyer with checkered wood flooring and clementine colored walls ending at to a leopard print runner leading up upstairs. Photos of these rooms can be seen here.
Our room, room 6, held a beautiful queen four poster bed with the softest sheets imaginable. Bright robin’s egg blue walls and hand painted hydrangea blended with two floral chairs and a unique antique chest. My favorite piece in the room was a lovely painting with a soothing scape of ladies by the water seen as though peering through hazy flowered trees. It was lovely. I took a few photos, but lighting was tricky. I highly recommend looking at the site. The inn is beautiful.
Being in Maine, it was essential to have lobster. Kyle insisted on treating me so we headed over to Street and Co. Arriving a bit early for our reservation, we hung out in the lounge area with wine, beer and shrimp cakes with a dill remoulade before being seated and devouring blackened swordfish on Kyle’s end and the grilled lobster on linguine with butter and garlic on mine. My mouth is watering at the thought of it. The lobster was succulent and plump, with just enough garlic and butter to create an intoxicating bite. I had a bit of difficulty getting into the claws. The waiter, taking pity on me, made some excuse about the shells being particularly hard this season and took it into the kitchen to whack it with a mallet. So sweet, so good. By the end of the night I was drunk on lobster and wine, happily content.
Easter morning we awoke early to a breakfast of egg roulade filled with leeks and parmesan over asparagus and golden homefries. I savored every bite as if it were my last. After breakfast we headed into Old Port to check out a few of the shops we skipped over the day before. A particularly important fact that completely slipped my mind when booking, it was Easter! Nearly half the shops were closed and the other half offered very late openings. We passed some time at a coffee shop, then wandered through the streets checking out the open shops. One of which happened to be a kitchen store. Two floors of nothing but spices, frying pans, toaster ovens, and bar ware. If there was ever a time for nestiness, it was then. Even Kyle, the boyfriend consistently trying to hang on to his independence and masculinity fell into the illusion of a cute apartment together with a fancy bar, Lodge cast iron pots and a Vitamix.
We caught lunch at a Mexican taco joint – this is when the drinking began. With a sweet bartender who’s love of tequila rivals my own, the three of us carried on a delightful conversation of Mexico, Boston, Maine, the military and so forth while we ate our tacos and she poured me a few drinks of her favorite tequilas. The rest of the afternoon was spent checking out more sites and feeding me more tequila in nearly every bar we passed. Tequila is like liquid sex.
Sufficiently drunk already, we made a pit stop at the inn to relax and drink some beer before heading to Boda, a very highly rated Thai restaurant. Arriving with no reservation, we were pushed into a bit of a wait and decided to wander the streets a bit, me intoxicated and Kyle catering to my whims. We were looking for a sex shop earlier that day, alas all the ones we found were closed for Easter, clearly not true heathens. As we walked around waiting for a table at Boda, we literally stumbled into one. If I remember correctly, we were trying to get into one shop and ended up opening the wrong door and going into a sex shop. Not a classy one, but this trashy shop with kinky videos and cheesy party favors. I won’t divulge into detail on what Kyle insisted on buying me, but it was quite naughty and caused my cheeks to burn scarlet.
Back at Boda- My pad thai cravings are never satiated and the pad thai here is by far the best I have ever had, perfectly spicy with incredible flavor. On top of that the drinks were unbelievable. I have never known a Thai restaurant to produce good drinks, but these made my taste buds tingle. Kyle and I split two drinks and I can’t remember the specifics on either, but one was a rum concoction with basil and the other was some iced tea, lemonade drink. Yummy. These two drinks inspired me to increase by bartending skills and Kyle to insist on me learning how to mix these specifically.
After the meal and drinks, we headed back to the inn for some inappropriate behavior. The following morning involved a breakfast of grapefruit brulee and strudel with thick cut savory bacon. This meal ended Portland on a high note.
Wonderful city, delightfully romantic. Do visit!
Avventura 