The notion of Sunday brunch belongs on the lowest rung of the culinary ladder, a superficial course of dining that has as much meaning as a Hallmark Get Well card. Yet every so often the idea seems like a good one--to partake in a dining ritual that can last most of the day.

On Sundays I don’t mind staying home and reading all the papers that I get delivered, or sit like a salted hog on my favorite TV chair surfing all 500 channels of digital-box offerings.

Yet the idea of brunch seemed right last Sunday—a beautiful early spring day perfect for an outing.

We decided to go to the Harraseeket Inn in Freeport. If you’re not familiar with that dining and hotel establishment, it’s actually highly regarded by many when it comes to respectable dining and decent accommodations.

It’s where Fore Street’s Sam Hayward got his start and its reputation still survives in different guises, both in their old pub style Tavern and the main dining room.

Their Sunday brunch menu is a monumental buffet spread set up in the main dining room to the tunes of the dancing bear at the player piano in an atmosphere of highly serious camp.

I find it somewhat silly. But buffets at best belong to the high half of mediocre. And the Harraseeket’s works well enough in its gussied up L-shaped Colonial building spread eagled across a Main Street of discount retailers.

That said, I have eaten well there. This time I’m not so sure we hit it at its best.

The buffet peddled every known gastronomic cliché that fits into stainless steel serving receptacles set over Bunsen burners.

There were nameless salads and spreads that were hit and miss. The panzanella held lifeless cubes of bread drowned in mounds of soggy lettuce. The baked spinach spread was delicious though I hate to think of all the starches and fats that went into its preparation, enough to send the highly heroic running off to barf in the rest room.

There were also boats of eggplant with some sort of Mediterranean-style filling, most likely couscous; endive boats of Maine shrimp, however, were fine. And since I’m a sucker for pickles I loaded my first course plate heavily with them, sweet and delicious. But where was the smoked salmon, capers, red onion and bagels when you needed it most?

The main courses were loosely based on Indian cooking that fared no better than an Iranian nuclear experiment in New Delhi. There was sliced loin of pork on a nest of black beans, which were unforgivably crunchy and bloated with the rank taste of too much cumin and other spices.

The roast chicken pieces were mysterious too. I poked around with the serving spoon trying to find some breast meat to no avail. I passed on the mashed potatoes and sunk heavily into a medley of roast vegetables. These were card-board cut-outs posing as spring roots. I spied an appealing looking dish holding some sort of savory pudding only to plunge into a tepid frittata casserole, bland and mushy

The one sane offering was roast prime rib. There it was in all its glory. It was a giant roast that was two feet long and just as wide. The server carved the meat carefully and beautifully. I asked for a very thin slice since my plate was pointlessly loaded.

It was wonderful, as it should have been—utterly tender, rare and roasted to perfection, with just a hint of salt, pepper and garlic. When in doubt stay with the basics and you can’t go wrong.

The desserts looked like a timely antidote to a dreary meal. That they were spread out behind our table was fortuitous. When you’re feeling full and wretched, sweets are as amelioratory as rescue at sea.

I can’t say anything bad about the desserts. There were no surprises. Though each one looked like the other. Everything was either slathered in white icing or whipped cream. The choices were offerings like chocolate cake, peanut butter pie, lemon curd tart, cheesecake and vanilla ice cream with fixings.

I chose the lemon curd tart. It was set in a lovely sweet pastry but the filling was too gelatinous for my taste. A proper lemon curd, which this was not, relies on classic custard: eggs, sugar, milk or cream and butter that are gently cooked until it’s thick enough to coat the proverbial back of a spoon.

My next sampling was the chocolate raspberry cake. I know I should have stopped with the offending curd, but I just couldn’t overcome the hollow caverns of sweet-tooth syndrome that’s always been my downfall.

The cake was wonderful, rich, deep chocolate layers with a raspberry filling. The white icing was so sweet that even my otherwise boundless need for sugar was overwhelmed.

As buffets go, Harraseeket’s is better than most and certainly bigger. Yet in the general world of all-you-can-eat dining, the food is never hot enough and there are too many choices. Ultimately such a huge midday meal is hard to take.

This Sunday, another beautiful day, sent me longing for another brunch spot in which to enjoy a peerless spring day.

If I have eggs at all it’s at seven in the morning at a roadside diner or at home. The last thing I want is some fussy version of Eggs Benedict all too often plastered with hollandaise that’s no better than industrial lubricant.

We have many popular Sunday brunch spots in Greater Portland that do a great job--Local 188, Uffa, 555, 20 Milk Street to name a few. Outside our gates places like MC Bistro in Ogunquit or Pier 77 in Cape Porpoise are also good destinations for brunch.

But I wasn’t in the mood for any of the obvious or easy choices. An outing on a beautiful day and a good meal at the end of the trip seemed like the best plan.

How lucky we are to have Casco Bay as our front yard. A trip to Peaks Island made perfect sense. Surely there must be something open there for an amusing meal? We called up a friend who lives there and she suggested that we meet at the Inn on Peaks.

It’s located up the hill from the terminal, with very fine views of the harbor and neighboring islands.

The restaurant is called The Pub and what a delightful surprise it was. The room is probably one of the nicest looking dining rooms in all of Greater Portland—a revelation with a view.

It’s open year-round, serving lunch and dinner and is apparently a very popular weekend destination for islander’s instead of trundling off to Portland for a night out.

The décor runs along nautical themes, which is not a surprise. But it’s put together so well that you think you’re in much fancier digs rather than the low-key ambiance of Peaks Island.

With its highly polished wainscoted walls, gleaming pine floors, earthy tones, a very cozy but sleek looking bar in the back and that stunning view of Casco Bay, what could be bad?

Of course we didn’t sample the menu to any great extent but what we had was well done. We had excellent Bloody Marys to start. We refrained from many of the set menu starters like nachos or deep fried hot peppers and other sundry tidbits sure to fill one up unnecessarily. The rest of the menu has standard items: burgers, salads, sandwiches and a few entrees but they all sounded very appealing. What I saw coming to the table of other diners looked good.

That the inn has put so much effort into making its restaurant space attractive bodes well for a kitchen ready to aim just as high.

My two friends ordered hamburgers and I chose one of the specials, a fried Oyster Po’ Boy. These were fried Winter Points on a grilled, crispy roll with lettuce, tomato and tartar sauce served with wonderful crunchy, well salted fries. Other specials at lunch were pan seared scallops over penne and a rib sticker of maple sausage and mashed potato pie topped with mozzarella. If I were ten years younger and ten pounds lighter I might have gone for such an absurdly compelling dish as the maple sausage.

The burgers were very good, well grilled with crusty outsides and arrived medium rare as ordered. My Po’Boy was also a good choice. The oysters were fresh tasting and succulent and the coating had requisite crunch and flavor. Though just three small bivalves on the roll seemed skimpy.

But in a wonderful setting, on a great day with the sparkling waters of Casco Bay absolutely brilliant and clear, I could have dined on far less appealing food and felt OK about it. As it was, The Pub inspired a lot of confidence: The food was good and was served in a highly attractive setting in a charming waterfront location.

The Pub at Inn on Peaks is definitely worth the short trip, and I plan to go there again rain or shine.

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