The Fiddlehead Restaurant

Fiddleheads the food, I love, but friends told me I should try The Fiddlehead Restaurant, in Bangor, and you'll be pleased to know, oh certain friends from Penobscot, that I finally made it in yesterday, and was very pleased to have done so. Let me tell you about it.

First, the courtyard entrance is actually up the street from the storefront, so don't pull on the door right at the restaurant. After entering the courtyard, you take a left and a right and a left, then go down the stairs to the hosting station. I arrived at about 4:45 thinking I'd  have no trouble finding a seat--this isn't Manhattan, right--and I did, the last seat at the bar. I could have had a table, but I prefer to sit at the bar.

The menu is arranged in "firsts," "seconds," and "thirds," directing the diner from appetizer to salad to entree. Though the salads looked wonderful, I decided to try two firsts and a third instead.

I started with "lobster fritters with fresh corn and sweet onion and red pepper jam. First, the "jam." Though it looked like sweet chili sauce, the kind you buy in big bottles, which I love, and which makes everything taste better, this was not from a bottle. It was similar in style, but prepared with fresh green onion that made the flavor pop. The fritters were crisp, like tempura, and the smell of the onions reminded me of beer battered onion rings. They were two, fairly large fritters, so I had to cut them into three or four pieces. The one or two pieces that didn't have any lobster were very tasty and would be a hit by themselves, and those with the lobster claw meat were even more delicious. There was some body meat in one of the fritters, though, and it wasn't as tender as the claw meat.

The pan-seared salmon
on cauliflower flan.

The "tuna tartare with sesame wonton crisps," with its chunks of tuna, red onion, and citrus lacked the visual appeal of the fritters, but was perfectly balanced. The tender, fatty texture of the tuna contrasted the delicate wonton crisps wonderfully, creating what I told the bartender was "compulsive eating." Do you know how once in a while, when you go to a potluck dinner, someone brings something so delicious that you keep coming back for more? If somebody brought a bowl of this to a potluck, I wouldn't leave its side. It was amazing.

Though I usually don't eat fish at every course, for my "third," the pan-seared, dill pollen dusted salmon with Nicoise olives, capers, and garlic on top of roasted cauliflower flan was impossible to resist. A large piece of salmon (it looks small in the photo, but must have been 8 ounces) was pan seared to medium rare, the way the chef prefers it. The warm crust, tender, moist fish, capers, olives, and garlic were a rich and complex mouthful delicious by themselves, but the real star of the dish was the roasted cauliflower flan. The earthy sweetness of the cauliflower and the buttery goodness of the eggs with a brown bottom crust were an epiphany, truly an eye opener. When the fish, the flan, and the flavors were all in one bite, the tastes and textures melded fabulously, but were still distinguishable from the other, and they went very well with the glass of Muscadet recommended by the bartender.

And I waddled out of the restaurant.

In short, for very good food in a lively environment with attentive service, try the Fiddlehead Restaurant.

Food: ★★★★☆ Ambience: ★★★★☆ Service: ★★★★☆

Check, please: $$SS

The Fiddlehead Restaurant

84 Hammond Street,
Bangor, Maine, 04401

(207) 942-3336