I’m patiently waiting—maybe even somewhat impatiently—for the new wave of restaurants to open in the Portland area. There’s a lot of talk and promise of new venues to come but nothing is really set in stone as far as I know.

Some enterprising restaurateur should take over the former Stein Gallery space on Middle Street. I could see that as a whopping good locale for an ambitious eatery to set up shop in style.

There’s talk, however, of a knock-your-socks off high-end eatery, with a famous chef, opening up in the still unbuilt Eastern Waterfront condos, which are pending approvals and other data too complicated for us mortals to understand.

Then there’s the upcoming resurrection of the soon to be former Jordan’s Meat Packing building on Middle and India streets that will house a Westin hotel and host a star-studded restaurant. In no time that part of Middle Street will be interesting indeed and could very well become an intriguing restaurant row.

Then this summer Dana Street will open an all American bakery, and I think that’s a good idea. Fore Street’s dessert menu is about as good as it gets for down-home sweets. I’ve already put my order in for Shoo-fly Pie and Grasshopper Squares.

Yet none of the future promises held promise for last night as I searched my mind trying to figure out where I wanted to dine. I’d been everywhere at least once in the last week, with no complaints whatsoever. I even had a nice little Sunday brunch at Uffa.

With trepidation we stumbled into Katahdin last night. Though it had fallen out of favor in my book I decided to go if we could find a place to park in the lot across the street on Spring St. It must have been fate. There were two empty spaces and we took one.

Only compulsive eating habits could make me return to a scene of such utterly dull food as if to make the mundane seem bright.

If I look at another clichéd dish of smashed potatoes, baby greens, day-boat halibut or diver scallops implying that there’s no other kind, I might just have to contemplate cooking at home for an eternity. At least I’d get what I want. It’s like the house hunter who finds nothing worth the price of entry and settles for building a dream house of esoteric proportions.

Of course what’s good for the goose does not always beget the gander. Solace is often found, I suppose, in middle brow expectations, in which passable fare poses as good eating.

A few nights ago I sensed instantly that as soon as we walked into the Royal River Grille House in Yarmouth that the ensuing dinner would linger interminably in a tasteless triad of courses.

In the past I’ve always liked the food at the Royal River. And why not? Some years ago several key chefs from Fore Street had been snatched up to make this cantankerous heap on the water a destination. The food improved enormously. You could close your eyes and think that Sam Hayward was in the kitchen--or at least a well trained disciple.

The familiar flavors of wood grilled this and that were everywhere. And done well too. Arriving there from the city was like a day in the country to gaze at a tranquil boatyard looking out to the diffident wiles of Casco Bay.

If you haven’t heard from me in a while it’s because I’ve been caught in a culinary ennui, some remnant of conscience looking for inspiration.

The trouble is I’ve been everywhere—not unhappily—in our immediate area and need some new treads, a scarlet foray of food to get me excited.

In most of the established Portland area restaurants I’ve had wonderful meals. Gusts of greatness are fleeting at times, yet the overall dining experience can often rest on a single, beautifully prepared dish.

At 555, for example, the accompanying vegetable served with the hangar steak (skillfully devised) linger on as a great dish. A small new potato was baked, potato flesh removed and mixed with pureed parsnips and stuffed back in, topped with blue cheese. This was really good.

I could go on, naming dish after dish at other eateries, like a mental catalogue of taste or torture. But what comes to mind is that we can flaunt our wings over a span of so many good restaurants in our immediate area, landing here and there as the mood strikes.

But it’s time to travel and try other places, to revel in unmitigated pleasures elsewhere.

A friend of mine, a glamorous woman always bejeweled and bedecked, makes a startling entrance when she blasts into Bugaboo Creek at the mall for her weekly fix of steak, blooming onion and baked potato with everything on it. She loves the place, dropping in as she does like a bombshell erupting in a lagoon

Before going she fortifies her prominent figure with a high dose of Lipitor, like an icy finger on a palpitating pulse, thinking herself immune to otherwise high-caloric, high-fat food that she woofs down with abandon.

I’ve tried to explain the error of her ways. Lipitor is meant to keep cholesterol in check rather than to be a combatant in an onslaught. She turns a wonderfully sparkling deaf ear to my admonitions.

At least when I go it’s without misconception. Last night. I was in the mood for a good, thick well-grilled steak. I reasoned that if I ordered carefully I could assauge my yen for marbled beef without sacrificing mundane dietary concerns.

Unfortunately I’m the worst offender with zero tolerance in the face of temptation. It’s probably best for me to avoid places like Bugaboo’s altogether because the menu is mostly a merciless list that even the staunchest high-protein low-carb buff would have trouble navigating successfully without ingesting the egregious components of a heart-stomping meal.

My quest for perfect coffee-shop fare, greasy-spoon grub or just good old-fashioned home cooking is taking a premature breather. While the food can generally be satisfying and filling and good to the last licking drop, too much of it goes a long way quickly.

That’s how I felt today after I finished my lunch at Chute’s, the Windham family style dining cave along Route 302.

Like the Busy Bee, Chute’s is open for breakfast and lunch only, closing at 1 pm daily. The menu is eggs, eggs, eggs, which I don’t eat often because I have a tendency towards high cholesterol.

Still what I ate was very tasty, spicy, filling and will probably literally stick to my ribs for weeks to come. I decided, though, that this is not what I want to eat on a regular basis.

I’m content to satisfy my urge for road side food occasionally.

The egg dishes at Chute’s are certainly creative. I sampled the Swedish Hash, amongst many other hash versions on the menu. Mine was a slathering cornucopia of beef, chicken and ham mixed in with perfect home-fries and carmelizerd onions, with eggs over it and 2 slices of thick homemade bread buttered and toasted on the grill.

The hash was absolutely delicious. The potatoes were crunchy, just the way home-fries should be, and the onions and spices really brought it all together. The bread functioned like a utensil, as I used it to push all the ingredients together so it could be eaten with proper gusto.

Afterwards and several diet Pepsis later I felt like a burst sofa as I took to the road along the arduous drive back to Portland on Route 302.

I’m sure breakfast time at places like Chute’s is filled with people who go there every morning for one of these monstrous meals. It may all taste great. But every day?

Still, if you’re in the area, famished, don’t care about your weight, in perfect health and have nothing better to do, by all means go to Chute’s. It’s a hoot.

Not all coffee shops are created equal. Neither are all so-called institutions of home cooking worth the greasy spoon.

My newest discovery is the Busy Bee Coffee Shop on Portland Road, Route 26, just before the town of Gray. It sits squat and square on the road and actually has cabins too, which, of course, are not part of the deal when you’re going there for its real down-home food.

It’s basically a breakfast place, serving from 6 AM until noon, Tuesday to Sunday. In some ways it’s similar to Stone’s, though the menu is mostly egg dishes. But it’s the extras that intrigued me, like homemade baked beans, biscuits, sausages and other add-on fare to go with the main dishes. There are also pancakes and breakfast sandwiches.

When I was there today, one of the specials was eggs and steak mash. I’m not sure what that was, and I should have inquired, but I was too busy trying to decide what else to eat. Since I don’t eat eggs often, this place is somewhat off-limits for me, but the various offerings sounded great. One in particular was what they call The Beehive: eggs over potatoes, green peppers, onions and cheese, a noteworthy artery clogger in which one could indulge occasionally.

I opted for the stuffed French toast, no weakling in the calorie department either. But then again one is not going there to count carbs or calories.

Two really thick slices of toast, dipped into a tasty egg batter hold cream cheese sandwich style, which melts into a thick, creamy filling as the toast is cooked on the grill. It’s topped with a berry topping of raspberries, strawberries or blueberries and served with pure maple syrup on the side.

It was delicious, though it’s more like a sweet, which didn’t prevent me from savoring every bit. My side order of bacon helped to sop up the juices.

I wanted to order a small cup of baked beans and sample one of their homemade biscuits, but they were out of beans, and I thought I better leave well enough alone.

The room itself defies any attempt at décor. It’s a cozy pine-paneled space with perhaps 10 tables and a counter. I felt like I could have been in an obscure netherland of North Dakota or a farm town in Nebraska.

The waitresses are as friendly as could be, and they asked if I lived nearby or was merely passing through since I had not been seen there before.

It’s not surprising that the Busy Bee draws a local crowd. I suppose that unless you live in the area there’s probably not much reason to go there. But if you have, like I do, a passion for great greasy-spoon fare, distance shouldn't keep you from the Busy Bee. It's the real thing and I'll be back there again.

Next on my list of coffee shops to try where the spoon is better than the grease is Shute’s in Windham. If any of you have other suggestions please let me know.

Because I received such highly charged commentary on my thoughts about Cole Farms I think I should make my position clear and to explain why I wrote what I did.

The first time I went to Cole Farms was several years ago. I had often seen ads for it and read articles about the restaurant and subscribed to the notion of Cole Farms as one of those vastly revered institutions that grow like well nurtured fables in such a down-home state like Maine.

At the time I wasn’t disappointed in my dining experience. It was what I expected. But neither was I overly impressed. From Portland it’s 26 miles to Cole Farms in Gray, about 60 miles to Moody’s, about 30 miles to the Maine Diner in Wells, about 11 miles to Stone’s in North Yarmouth and a short stint over the Casco Bay Bridge to Spurwink Country Kitchen in Cape Elizabeth.

The menus are all very similar. And I decided right then and there that when I was in the mood for the prodigious hijinks of home cooking, I’d save my calorie intake for the others.

Since then I’ve returned to Cole Farms probably 5 or 6 times. It’s consistently the same. It’s really a funny, hokey place, and I mean that in a nice way. But the cooking is too bland for my hearty appetite and tastes.

It doesn’t have the humph of Moody’s or Stone’s or any of the other places. Perhaps the food is purposely bland, in consideration of their big senior citizen patronage.

But, for example, as soon as Spurwink County Kitchens in Cape Elizabeth opens for the season I’ll be there in a flash for their Salisbury steak, roast turkey or deviled crab casserole, which has to be as good as anything heaven sent. And if you haven’t ever tried their lemon meringue pie, you must because it’s a winner.

What can I say? Cole Farms just doesn’t do it for me.

It’s too bad that Cole Farms, in Gray, Maine, is not better than it is. I’ve been there on numerous occasions, always lackluster at best.

I went there this past Sunday by accident. The plan had been to go to the Busy Bee Coffee Shop, on Portland Rd. in Gray. But because of detours closing off flooded roads I was unable to get to the Busy Bee. It had been highly recommended by a friend who praised it for its delectable, stick-to-the-ribs down-home roadside fare.

I love these places: grub in the rough, what true American fare is all about. Call it what you will. Diner food, coffee shop fare, home cooking--a roster of comfort food that is dear to my heart, though not always so heart friendly.

My favorite local spot for such stuff is Stone’s in North Yarmouth. Others include the Spurwink Country Kitchen in Scarborough, Moody’s, in Waldoboro, the Maine Diner in Wells, the Brunswick Diner and the A-1 in Gardiner.

On local turf, I truly hope that the city of Portland can work out a happy ending to the Portland Diner fiasco that it has created. Wouldn’t it be swell to shoot over to a refurbished diner, along that attractively ignominious stretch of Marginal Way, for a fine version of a home-cooked meal?

There are countless others that I’ve been to in the state, names of which I can’t remember. One that I recall dearly from last summer is a small corner eatery along Main Street in Brooklin, that charming coastal village that has fortunately been left untouched by tourism or gaudy development. I hope it’s still there when I go back this summer.

So what gives with Cole Farms? Far be it from me to cast aspersions on a place that’s been dishing it out to the masses since 1952. Yet each time I go I’m woefully unimpressed.