At long last dining options in Maine are so relentlessly inspiring that it’s often a dart thrown to the wind to pick out the next new culinary wonder for the evening meal.

Sometimes all I really want is plain, simple food that’s well prepared—the kind of fare that extols the notion of American short-order cookery.

On an exalted level is Fore Street, which takes purity of ingredients that are cooked simply yet emerge complex with flavor and sophistication. I could dine there every night--just to have a salad whose greens were picked that morning or fish fresh from local waters or mushrooms foraged that afternoon.