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NAME: The Full Belly Deli (urbanspoon)
TYPE: Kosher Delicatessen
INFO: 1070 Brighton Ave Portland, ME 04102-1030 – (207) 772-1227
PRICE: About $8-10 a meal.
In Portland, if you are a loyal University Credit Union customer who happens to be without a debit card the only place you can go for cash on a Saturday is the branch way out on Brighton by the Lowe’s Plaza. Being one of these unlucky few I scraped together some shrapnel/change/silver coinage and hopped the number 4 bus to try to get some grocery money for the weekend. Now the bus ride was uneventful, and the bank experience uneventful as well, but throughout this tiresome trek to the far corner of our Emerald City my stomach was constantly reminding me of a promise I had made that I had not kept up on. A promise called lunch.
I was headed towards Quiznos for a sub and some nasty dipping sauce when the sign for The Full Belly Deli caught my eye. As a true Portlander, I decided to opt for the little guy instead of treating myself to a gut-bomb courtesy of Corporate America. Buy Local, you know? And so the first Potential Eats! review was born.
Now I am not a stranger to the Full Belly Deli. The place has been open since I was two (1987) and my parents when we were in town would make a point to stop by here for their ruben. I can’t recall what I had back then as I was only a lad of five or six, but the FBD’s fat, four-eyed logo—forever marfing on a deliciously huge sandwich—captivated me as a youth and the place has stayed with me. So with confidence and perhaps a bit of nostalgia I walked in to see what they could do for me.
The Set-Up: From what I remember the store seems to have changed little over the years. Maybe it’s a little bigger or cleaner, but the set-up is still basically the same: a cafe/cafeteria mash-up in true deli style. ‘Nothing Fancy, It’s the Food that Counts’ reads an old newspaper article displayed on the wall and it seems that the Deli has stuck to it’s guns.
The Eats: I am a man of no small fondness for any Thanksgiving themed sandwich. (Punky’s holds my love so far as the best spot in the Greater Portland Area for that purpose.) Seeing something comparable on the menu I quickly waltzed past the older couple arguing about blintzes and ordered a Fall Fowl sandwich with a drink. The lady rung me up for 10.12, did an about face and promptly barked out “FALL FOWL. BULKIE ROLL. MAYO. FOR HERE” to the four gents in the kitchen who echoed the order back in a chorus of shouts.
I sat down and tummy grumbling, awaited my feast.
In less than three minutes it arrived:
Is that a pickle sticking out of your Bulkie, or are you just happy to see me?
Eight layers of turkey, a patty of delicious stuffing, a good amount of cranberry sauce and some mayo. Had I gotten a lot less I would have been disappointed (hey, ten bucks is a lot to drop on lunch) but I was certainly pleased to get so much. Quiznos can go dunk their heads in steak juice, this is a sandwich.
And a kosher pickle? Cool.
Now there were a few minor things, first the turkey, which they list as fresh roasted, seemed to be fresh roasted and chilled, the stuffing was what was keeping the sandwich warm and it was struggling. Looking back at the menu I guess I should have ordered something from their hot sandwiches list if I wanted it warm so I decided to stop complaining to myself and enjoy. Which I did.
The Rest: This place is cool. A varied crowd, lots of businessmen and elderly couples. A fun list of yiddish phrases on the wall and tons of local, community supporting business memorabilia to look at too. They offer everything from blintzes to rubens, fried clams to spaghetti buckets and, if you’ll forgive the pun, most likely it’s all pretty kosher. The cooks laugh and yell and make PG-13 rated jokes that make you chuckle. It’s a real establishment with a strong clientele that makes you feel at home. It’s the best option if you’re out in this area. A great place to bring a co-worker, a friend, or your parents if they’re not looking for something fancy.
Plus I learned some yiddish!
Kugel Noodle or bread pudding usually cooked with rasins.
Nudnik A bore. A nudnik is a person who, when asked how he is feeling, really tells you exactly how he is feeling.
See?!
EXT. LIBERTY CITY SKYLINE – DAY
Birds float lazily on the breeze. A passenger plane takes off from Liberty City International. The Happiness Island statue stands in the background.
NARRATOR (VO)
Liberty City is not Washington, DC. While
the politicians on Capitol Hill discuss the
merits and faults of government-run health
care, public options, insurance companies,
special interests, and death panels, it’s
easy to forget that there are real people –
real polygons and shading algorithms –
who are struggling with health care
issues every day. Here in Liberty City,
U.S.A., millions of these people are trying
to achieve their American Dreams and
make their own decisions on the health
care crisis.
A military helicopter spins through frame on fire, launching missiles at the city.
EXT. LIBERTY CITY HOSPITAL – DAY
A PATIENT in a wheelchair speaks to the camera. His NURSE stands behind him.
PATIENT
I don’t know how it is anywhere else, but
I can’t afford my treatment here. My
insurance company is no help. And even
though I see glowing money floating on
the sidewalk on an almost daily basis, it
barely even makes a dent. Treatment
here isn’t cheap, either.
NURSE
We would love to provide less expensive
health services, but we’re stretched
incredibly thin. Violent crime and personal
injury are at an all-time high in Liberty City.
There aren’t enough health care providers
to provide adequate help for everybody.
An out-of-control Infernus plows through the man in the wheelchair.
NURSE
OH MY G–
The pursuing police cars knock her out of frame.
EXT. LIBERTY CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT – DAY
A POLICE OFFICER leans on the hood of his cruiser.
POLICE OFFICER
Benefits? We don’t get benefits. See, the
insurance companies, they know that paying
for health care for the LCPD would bleed them
dry. Nearly a hundred police officers get shot
every day in Liberty City. And you’d think
this would get the department to provide
better armor, or change tactics, but you’d
be dead wrong — no pun intended. The
academy is pumping out more officers every
day, and LCPD just throws them at every
hit-and-run from Alderney to Bohan. We
aren’t stopping crime, we’re just getting
hurt.
He points at someone off frame.
POLICE OFFICER
HEY! YEAH, YOU! YOU STEALING THAT
CAR?
He pulls out his gun and begins firing.
EXT. BOHAN STREET – DAY
NICO BELLIC speaks to camera.
NICO
I love health care in America. I’ve been
shot, blown up, hit by cars, run over
by trains, knocked off of buildings,
launched by grenades, and I’m always
out of the hospital a few hours later.
It never costs more than 10% of the
cash from my pocket. Health care
in America is perfect for a guy like
me.
Don’t know the name? He’s the guy who yelled out “You lie!” in the middle of President Obama’s speech on health care.
So, if you’re bored and feeling like you haven’t been misunderstood or called an “America hating muslim communist jew” enough in the past few weeks, feel free to place a comment on any article or video that’s been posted covering this. Seriously, it’s been blown way out of proportion. The man broke decorum. Obama recovered. It’s politics.
Crazy politics. But politics nonetheless.
However this unfortunate outburst has brought the liberal spotlight down on our poor Joe Wilson. He’s been under some intense scrutiny since his verbal outpouring with people looking to expose something horrible about our esteemed colleauge from South Carolina. Out of all of the morass, I found this to be the most interesting so far.
Senator Wilson is a retired Colonel from the Army National Guard and his four sons are in the armed services as well. Because of this Mr. Wilson recieves TRICARE, the millitary’s mostly free health care coverage. As Weinstein’s article states:
Military beneficiaries like Wilson—who, as a retiree, is eligible for lifetime coverage—never have to worry about an eye exam, a CT scan, a prolonged labor, or an open-heart surgery. They have access not only to the military’s 133,500 uniformed health professionals, but cooperating private doctors as well—whose fees are paid by the Department of Defense. It’s high-quality care, too: surveys from 2007 and 2008 list TRICARE among “the best health insurer(s) in the nation” by customer satisfaction.
Now here’s the tricky part: Sen. Wilson has voted multiple times against TRICARE and millitary health benefits. He has voted against expanding TRICARE coverage to all millitary veterans and has voted to reduce funding for the same program that his family has enjoyed the benefits of for generations.
Sen. Wilson is also one of the more outspoken opponents of government run health care. Despite the fact that he gets his health insurance from a government run agency. A very streamlined agency that encompasses both the government is funded by the Defense Department. And where does the Defense Department get it’s money?
Our taxes.
So it seems that Mr. Wilson is not opposed to his government run healthcare but is leery about the repercussions of our government run health care. To be fair his outburst was tied to his feelings that many illegal immigrants could be covered by a loophole in one of the bills, and yes, he has given a good portion of his life to serving the country’s millitary. But doesn’t a public schoolteacher, a police officer, a factory worker or any other individual serve their country as well? Is the only way to earn the government’s care to pick up a gun and pledge your life to do the government’s bidding?
I’ll stop before I get carried away.
Mint Films‘ 2009 48 Hour Film Project submission: The Burden. Winner of Best Actress and Best Sound Design awards. 1st runner up for Best Film.
True. At least the NYT website. For Portland’s recently booming reputation on the foodie scene, as it were, which has been making waves across the country. The visitor’s bureau has recently decreed that more money is spent in Portland, ME’s restaurants than anywhere else in the country, save the two giants, New York and San Francisco. This didn’t come as an enormous surprise to me, it’s easy living here to stroll down the street and take note of the shoulder to shoulder restaurants, diners and bar/grills. What did come as a surprise was the reason for the NYT making such a hub-bub (grub-hub?) about our little port city’s food culture.
In the last decade, Portland has undergone a controlled fermentation for culinary ideas — combining young chefs in a hard climate with few rules, no European tradition to answer to, and relatively low economic pressure — and has become one of the best places to eat in the Northeast. The most interesting chefs here cook up and down the spectrum, from Erik Desjarlais’s classically pressed roast ducks at Evangeline, to the renegade baker Stephen Lanzalotta’s gorgeously caramelized sfogliatelle (sold out of the back of Micucci Grocery, an Italian-imports shop), to Mr. Potocki’s simple but brilliant chili-garlic cream cheese and handmade bagels.
Tablecloths, Asian fusion and spherification are out (the locals aren’t interested in, or rich enough to indulge in, frivolous food experiments, the thinking goes). Nose-to-tail, rustic French and Italian, and small plates are in.
They go into a lot of the more famous chef’s names and signature plates from around town, emphasizing Portland’s infamous “Buy Local” campaign and mentioning both of the weekly Farmer’s Markets. Of course, I was very skeptical at first by all the name-dropping. It seemed to highlight the finest dining establishments in the area, such as Evangeline or Bresca.
Buttermilk panna cotta from Bresca -- looks so good it might fellate me.
This is all in lieu of Bon Apetit magazine recently declaring Portland, Maine as the Foodiest Small Town in America (!!!).
Forget name-dropping chefs, Portland’s ride just got pimped to the rest of America. Forbes already boasts how livable our city is, and now here’s Bon Apetit telling everyone to eat here. Their very well-written narrative article on the decision goes even further into Portland foodie culture, turning over stones to find the less-renowned businesses that build the backbone of eating out, the breakfast diners. Both Becky’s and Marcy’s are praised, as well as South Portland’s 158 as having “the country’s best bacon, egg, and cheese bagel sandwich.” Even Hot Suppa! makes it in. Here’s the whole article, it’s really something.
Japanese snapper rolls, out of Masa Miyake.
Miyake, the little innocuous sushi place up in the West End, gets mention in both NYT and Bon Apetit. The head chef Masa Miyake moved his family of five out of a single bedroom in Queens to open up shop here in Portland, and now they’re apparently running the best sushi game in town. I’ll have to check it out and test my strong loyalties to King of the Roll and Fuji.
Both authors also took part in a top-secret invite-only underground no-holds-barred dinner party, referred to only as “Deathmatch.” This is when two local culinary players throw down and match their mettle against each other. With themes ranging from “foie gras” to “breakfast” to “Your Last Meal,” the latter of which was an 18-course meal complete with caviar and crème fraîche on potato chips, grill-roasted local Damariscotta oysters served with hot sauce and a squeeze of lemon, and “bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches served by young women dressed as Catholic schoolgirls, wielding hot mayonnaise in squeeze bottles.”
I don’t know where this infamous event takes place, but I simply must infiltrate it, deep undercover reporter style. I’m sure they’ll probably black-bag me somewhere in Monument Square, spin around ten times, then put me in a van for two hours before letting me out deep in a catacomb of tunnels where I must paw my way through Portland’s underbelly to their hidden arena, where I’m fully strip-searched and beaten with reeds for good measure (Reader, don’t fear, they will never find my trusty pen and Moleskine. Hint: They’re not in my bowel cavity.)
I, for one, am enthused Portland’s getting so much cred on the national scene. Sure, I’ll bitch and moan at all the tourists, but will I still kindly, almost eagerly, give them directions to Exchange St. or the Nickelodeon, or Five Fifty-Five? You bet your filet mignon. But I still feel a wide demographic of Portland’s business is being neglected: the cheap-eats we twenty-something collegiate depend on for breaks from the ramen and tuna, where we will actually take people on wallet-friendly dates while still maintaining class, the places we’ve grown up with and can’t seem to stop going to.
Join me, Potentialites, in an archiving of a true local’s eatery experience in this grand city, before the lower middle class gets broad-brushed out by these fancy-shmancy New York Times toting “foodies.”
On a related note, I also wish to catalog and review all of Portland’s bars and pubs, before someone else beats us to it. J-Christie, I’m looking Straight. At. You.
Before a CNBC interview on Monday, President Obama was yukking it up with reporters and let it slip that he is actually a Human Being, with Opinions and a Sense of Humor. His comments about Kanye West’s ridiculous micjacking at the VMAs — namely that Kanye acted like a “jackass” — made their way out into the world, and now people may have to accept that he has the ability to be both candid and jovial. How this will change politics in the years to come is unknown.
TMZ.com has the audio, which clearly captures the comments and also includes a reporter calling the President a “ninja.” Look out, Kanye; when you’ve gained the ire of a Hope and Change Ninja President, it may be time to take a long hard look at the way you’re living your life.
OMFG that thing is so F-ing enormous.
The Big Daddy of the Deep Blue Sea. The Mother of All Whale Chords. Balaenoptera musculus. The Largest Living Mammals on Earth.
The Blue Whale.
Scientists predict there’s still close to 10,000 blue whales in the ocean due to aggressive hunting in the early 1900′s. The thing is, we rarely see them. There’s actually a lot we don’t know about the blue whale. They’re the largest living things on the planet, excluding Aspen tree root structures, colonies of fungus and the Great Barrier Reef if you can count it. Yet, despite their mass, we have no idea where these beautiful swimmers mate, or even give birth! It’s only hypothesized through migration patterns to occur in the Antarctic Circle where all oceans meet and go the deepest. But pods of blue whales travel all over the world, even being sited up in the Gulf of Maine. Here’s a recent photo of a team following one off Costa Rica:
It's hard to believe but it is quite far away from the diver.
If the diver were right next to the whale, he’d barely be as long as it’s right flipper. For some relative comparison, it’s tail flukes are as big as a regulation soccer goal. The whale’s body is longer than a regulation length basketball court.
Check this out for some other comparisons in stature.
Personally, I’d soil my wetsuit just watching something that massive swim past. These guys had the gall to chase the whales down and tag them for scientific research. Using approximation on rings in the blubber around their ears, they’ve determined the blue whale is one of the oldest living species of animal, averaging about 80 years, the oldest found to be 120 years. And this is just guessing. They don’t even have science or medicine to help them out and they live longer than most humans.
They can also communicate up to 1,000 miles, making the ocean seem a whole lot smaller when they sing their songs to each other. It also boggles my tiny simple brain that the largest creatures on Earth get by on a diet of krill, tiny shrimplike critters only ONE centimeter long. Given, the whales consume up to FOUR METRIC TONS of krill a day.
Just some food for thought, next time you think you’re all big and bad with your puny monkey brain.
Not necessarily a link, I guess, but a series of links.
Digging through the archives of one of my favorite columns on the planet, The Straight Dope. I came across this pirate-and-buried-treasure article concering a certain small island in Nova Scotia and the millions of dollars that have been invested there trying to dig up buried pirate treasure.
Hot dog! Pirate gold!
The condensed-milk version of the story goes like this: In 1795 three kids were out in a rowboat and landed on Oak Island to explore. While there they found an old oak tree and what looked like the remnants of an earlier excavation. Being kids the most plausible answer they deduced was, of course, pirate gold. They got shovels and dug. Two feet down they found a tier of flagstones and then further down through the loose soil, a series of oak planks. The whole pirate gold thing suddenly seemed very plausible and in a calculated decision that I believe would be lost on our generation they decided to keep mum about the whole thing.
The boys, all grown up, went back dug a whole lot and found no doubloons but the shaft kept going down occasionally layered over with enough evidence to convince them that treasure was right around the corner. The tunnels kept flooding, and the technology they were using was fairly poor so eventually they stopped. This website provides a really good anecdote in that Old New England-style of the boys initial discovery:
Pirate treasure! In 1795 there were still live pirates and the tales of their buried loot were told in every coastal town. Legend held Mahone Bay to be an old rendezvous for the buccaneers, and it was named for a French word describing a swift, low-lying pirate craft. Queer stories were told in the villages along the shore about Oak Island; one old woman, whose family were early settlers, told Mclnnis it was under an evil curse. The more superstitious swore that Satan had chosen it for his local headquarters and held hellish orgies under the tall Oaks.
The trio returned to the mainland and loaded their boat with picks and shovels. The earth flew thick next day, and they found the dirt in the shallow depression much softer than the packed ground around it. They saw what they believed to be old tool marks on the sides of the pit as the loose earth crumbled away from it
At the ten foot level the shovels struck solid wood. After the dirt had been cleared away, they found themselves standing on a platform of oak planks three inches thick. There was some difficulty in tearing up these planks, for they were not simply laid into the soft dirt in the pit but solidly embedded in its sides. Underneath was nothing but more clay. A block and tackle was rigged to the old scarred limb to hoist out the soil and the digging went on to the twenty foot level. Here was another oak platform and more dirt under it. At the thirty foot level, and a third oak platform, the boys reached the limit of their engineering ability and could do nothing more without help.
The boys became men and enlisted some local help. They even built houses on the island to keep an eye on the treasure site, now known as the Money Pit. Word got out though. Two hundred years later 37 different shafts have been dug by investors from across N. America, including Theodore Roosevelt. A causeway was eventually built and major equipment hauled out to continue excavating. The holes sometimes reaching over 160 feet in depth. However it appears the pirates dug deeper. There really is no topping their ingenuity and perseverance. I mean, throw in a penchant for scurvy and you’ve got the three main pre-req’s for a piratical resume.
- Pirates could do better.
The holes frequent flooding has been attributed to pirate ingenuity and booby traps set to deter treasure hunters, despite the fact that the island is riddled with limestone and the floods rise and fall with the tides. A stone was found with coded markings on it but has since mysteriously dissapeared, and one team excitedly found excavating equipment, though they never determined if this was equipment from the pirate crew or just an earlier team.
"I've really found piracy to be the only field where I get to apply my Masters in Geotechnical Engineering on a day-to-day basis."
Anyway… Three or four men died while excavating in 1965 and as of 1971 all digging on the island has stopped. Recently the island was sold to investors from Michigan who hope to resume the hunt in the near future. The Michigan group still states they hope to find the buried treasure and discover the secret of Oak Island.
Despite all this maniacal digging, very little treasure has been found. The entire event is about as blue-ballingly frustrating as a bad episode of Ghost Hunters. They did find three links of a gold chain, and what might be a mooring for a ship in a nearby cove. But as far as anyone with skeptical opinions on the topic are concerned two-hundred years of flooding, draining, blasting and drilling most likely have scattered or destroyed anything of historical significance. If there was treasure, it’s probably washed into the emergency, 230 foot deep, secret sub-chamber, located two hundred feet off the shore of the island. You know, the gigantic, air-tight, space-galleon that the pirates built using oak planks and coconut fiber? Yeah. It’s probably buried in there.
And remember kids: Always cut it up, never cut it down.
So, it’s a Friday night and you’re bumming cause your friends just canceled their big Bass Hunter 64 tournament and you’ve got nothing to do. Why not go and see a show?
Grant Street Orchestra is playing their farewell show at the Big Easy with Model Airplane. Both acts are amazing if you like funk and soul. So don’t just get drunk and play pinball all night: get drunk, play pinball and go see Grant Street Orchestra.
Check it:
