The list of restaurants outside of Portland I want to visit is long—but truth be told, I don't leave the city that much, and when I do it's usually for work, leaving me not much time to explore an area's food scene. But two recent trips to Camden and Lincolnville gave me the opportunity to finally dine at Long Grain in Camden, a place I'd heard many raves about.
Long Grain is usually billed as a Thai restaurant, but they also serve Vietnamese, Japanese, and other Asian dishes using local food, with a price tag about on par with Portland Thai restaurants.
The restaurant is small, with only 10 or so tables and a few seats at the bar. The few times I've tried to go in the past, the wait has been considerable due to limited seating. This night though, while the restaurant was still full even in mid-May, we only had to wait a few minutes for seats at the bar.
I started with an order of the street wings ($12), served undressed with a spicy/sweet dipping sauce on the side. They were super crispy, maybe battered and fried twice and very moist inside—more like fried chicken than typical sports bar wings.
Here I need to tell you that I went back to Long Grain a month later for lunch by myself and wasn't able to stray from the next two dishes. I had good intentions of exploring the rest of the menu, but these two dishes were such home runs for me the first time around that I couldn't help but order them again.
The Vietnamese salad with nuoc cham dressing ($9) was so fresh and light—a wonderful mix of vegetables, a few vermicelli noodles, fried garlic and shallots, and lots of fresh mint, basil, and cilantro. With a tart and sweet dressing, I was in heaven. I wish all my salads could be like this one.
Same with the Northeastern style Thai beef ($12)—this is a lifestyle salad with fresh herbs, grilled beef and lots of lime juice and fish sauce. It's slightly spicy too, and I inhaled it with sweat breaking out on my brow.
So from years of no visits to Long Grain to two in a month—we'll see if on my next visit I can manage to branch out in my ordering.
Don't wait as long as I did to venture up to Camden and enjoy lunch or dinner at Long Grain. They do take reservations for both meals up to one month in advance. I am already looking for my next reason to visit.