Street and Co

7/17/2008

Portland, Maine: 33 Wharf St - (207) 775-0887

Price: Mid-Range

Rating (1-10): 7

Street and Co is the kind of restaurant that seems to blend perfectly with a quaint costal town like Portland. The food is solid and comes out with exciting presentation, but above all, the ambiance gets you in the mood for a cozy New England seafood experience. Service is casual here and it's not particularly remarkable but it's friendly enough.

Dim candle light, exposed brick, bunches of dried herbs hanging from wooden ceiling beams, simple white tshirt server uniforms, and an extremely aromatic interior all contribute to a rustic, warm atmosphere. It's a lot easier said than done to create this kind of environment without it being cheesy or forced or pretentious. The 'organic' feel is kind of trendy right now but Street and Co feels like a place that was onto it long before.

The food is more or less Italian with heavy doses of seafood, which you expect and want, being on the water in lobster capital USA. Many of the dishes (presumably those cooked on the stovetop) come out served in an actual beat-up saute pan, which adds to the simple and straightforward idea - no dots and swirls and Miro-looking dishes here. The mussels appetizer is truly delicious, with a rich, garlicky broth. You could just dip bread (which is from nearby Standard Bakery and also delicious) into this broth all night and leave totally happy. The crab and avocado appetizer is uncomplicated and fresh with a very generous serving of crab; it's a good selection if you're looking for light, healthy, unadulterated taste of the sea - the only downside is that the meat is mostly broken up and you don't get the large lumps o' crab that offer big, meaty bites.

The plates get more dramatic with the entrees, headlined by the lobster diavolo: a mammoth two person pasta in a saute pan, loaded down with a red sauce packed with an assortment of seafood including mussels, squid, lobster in the shell. When you see this on the menu, you figure, "when in Rome..." The diavolo is good enough but the joy of this dish comes less from the taste of the food and more from seeing the presentation and all the stuff in the sauce. The food itself could use some refinement: the sauce was quite oversalted, for one. And when cracking the lobster claws, water came rushing out into the dish, watering down the sauce. Clipping the ends of the claws prior to putting it in the dish would drain a lot of this water. The more simple lobster with butter-garlic sauce over pasta is a similar dish that tastes better - but perhaps it's not as exciting or chaotic as the diavolo. But one thing to emphasize is that with either one, and most any other dish I saw, is that you get your money's worth. These are very generous portions and they don't sacrifice the quality of the ingredients. I like places like this because it feels very hospitable.

The service is a bit scattered but not intended to be super-high end anyway. They might forget a thing or two that you ask for, or more than one person might come over and ask you the same question. But the weaknesses are not egregious and the bottom line is that you come to have a good time, and in places like these, you don't hold the staff over the fire. You get friendly, warm atmosphere and pleasing food for good value. Of course, for Street and Co to take it to the next level and really be a place that grabs a spot in your heart, it'll have to improve the personability and attention to detail in its service.

When you go visit Portland, Maine, I think it's this kind of dining experience you're looking for. You come to the town because you want to cozy, quaint, relaxed feel - and you want to get hit over the head with seafood. Street and Co delivers well on all of those things.