If the idea of a funky, offbeat restaurant is appealing to you, I’ve found just the right one. If it also happens to be on an obscure, lifeless, dark street in South Portland, and housed in a squat building that looks more like a storage shed than a temple of tempting fine food, then it’s either going to be fabulous or just a scary ordeal.

Somehow I think it’s going to be fabulous.

The establishment in question is 158, in South Portland. I haven’t had dinner there yet-- at this gastronomic newcomer to the evening meal. They’ve been around for a long while as a place to stop in and have breakfast or lunch. It’s owned by the same folks (with the same name) who whip up incredible breads, cakes and pastries over on Willard Square.

I went there for lunch the other day, not knowing what to expect. It’s a grim room but warm and cozy. The lunch menu is basically creative salad and sandwich offerings. I had the tuna melt.

My standards for a good tuna melt are the following: It should be prepared like a grilled cheese sandwich-- put on a hot, greasy grill and weighed down by one of those weights that restaurants use to flatten such sandwiches. What emerges is crispy, buttery toast with the cheese oozing nicely over the tuna salad. The only gripe I have is most places don’t cook the sandwich long enough. When it’s served, the tuna salad is still cold while the rest of the sandwich is hot.

At 158 they do it right. It was served on their terrific bakery-made country loaf—two enormous slices housing a zesty tuna salad. Here the tuna was almost scalding hot. In the world of melts, this was a great tuna melt.

I’m looking forward to dinner there tonight. The menu seems promising, if not ambitious. Here’s a sampling.

Caramelized onion pie
Baked ricotta with spinach
Oysters Rockefeller
Pulled chicken and almond dumplings in parsley broth
Seared trout in a cornmeal crust with blackeyed pea salad and country ham
Hand cut pasta tossed with chard, walnuts and blue cheese
Braised pork over homemade noodles

Mom’s cream puffs
Blackbottom banana cream pie
Aunt Marty’s cheesecake.

The most expensive entrée is $12.

I’ll let you know.

Other notable meals I've had in the past several days have included dinner at Bandol, which continues to be as good as it gets and a lively time and wonderful meal at 555 last night.

A very promising new restaurant has opened recently in Camden. It's called Natalie's, and I had a terrific lunch there today. It overlooks the waterfall at the Mill complex. It's a large and beautiful restaurant offering really inventive, creative, elegant fare. I'll go into more detail on all of these restaurants in the coming days.

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