As I mentioned yesterday, I got up super early to try out Standard Baking Co. during our short stay in Portland, Maine. And by super early, I mean I was up at 6:30 a.m., showered, dressed, and waking up my mom by 7. I don't even get up that early for work!
We wandered down the street to the bakery and stood in a very short line, which gave us just enough time to check out the offerings and decide what we wanted to get.
While all the bread looked gorgeous, I waited until Saturday morning to get some of it to bring home. This particular morning was all about the breakfast pastries.
We got a croissant, a chocolate croissant, a ham and cheese croissant, a raisin pecan roll, a French roll, and a blueberry scone and brought them back to the hotel room to eat.
The croissant and chocolate croissant were my favorites. They were so buttery and flaky. The ham and cheese croissant was a little smoky, but I really liked the sesame seeds on top. The blueberry scone was moist and chock-full of berries, and the raisin pecan roll was really good as well. We got the French roll for my sister Martyann, so I didn't end up trying any of it. But we got French baguettes the next morning, and those were so crusty and delicious, and I brought a country boule home and made egg sandwiches for Jeff and me on slices of it.
Besides breads and breakfast pastries, we also saw bags of cookies and biscotti and sampled an oatmeal raisin cookie while we were there. And they serve coffee as well. Standard Baking Co. is definitely a must-try if you love croissants and fresh bread.
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My whole plan for us in Portland was to fit in as much eating as possible, which meant that we didn't necessarily have to have whole meals anywhere; hence, just some pastries for breakfast. Sticking with this plan, we went to Duckfat for a snack, which definitely ended up being filling enough to count for lunch.
Duckfat is known for its Belgian-style fries, fried in, you guessed it: duck fat! Clearly, that's why we had to go there.
We started with drinks. My mom tried the house made Maine blueberry lemongrass ginger ale, I got a grapefruit-ginger soda, and Lindsay tried a chocolate shake. Duckfat is also known for its shakes.
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| I loved that our drinks were served in Ball jars. |
We ended up ordering a large cone of fries with ketchup and truffle ketchup, a small order of poutine, and a BGT to split.
The fries alone were worth the trip.
And the dipping sauces were beyond adorable, served in these little jars, not to mention delicious. I loved the truffle ketchup.
The poutine was amazing. Duckfat's house fries get topped with house made duck gravy and Pineland Farms cheese curd. I did see a little goodnatured fighting over the gooey cheese.
The BGT we probably could have done without. It's a bacon, goat cheese, and tomato sandwich on flatbread. The bacon was a little underdone for my liking, and we all decided the sandwich would be better with some greens or just a little something else to it.
Sticking with our plan to just snack and not eat too much in one place, we, of course, ordered dessert. The beignets were calling out to us, so we got an order of them topped with chocolate sauce.
They were very light and lemony but had a bitter aftertaste... to the point that we thought we were eating the pith of the lemon. They were good in theory, but the lemon just needed to be toned down a touch.
Final verdict: We'll definitely be back for more poutine and Belgian fries.
Have you ever been to Standard Baking Co. or Duckfat? What did you think?