Month: January 2023

Paia is notable first for being a plantation town on Maui, second for being the primary stop between Kahului and Hana, and third for being near a nice beach. As such, the town is often busy and full of tourists. Many places in Paia cater to the tourist crowd, but there are some authentic spots which excel.  Cafe Mambo is one such spot.      

While small, Cafe Mambo is one of the great authentic spots in Paia, if not all of Maui. Housed in what looks like an old plantation era store, it has great charm and character.  

It’s small, but well decorated and laid out. The inside is full of reasonable amateur artwork (for sale) and is light and airy. The windows are open and the breeze is comfortable. The staff seem very happy at their work. As do the customers.

The bar at the restaurant is along the whole wall, but still small because it is part of the dining room. It is very well stocked for the size of the place and they have a good variety of beers on tap.  

The food was phenomenal, we tried a seafood soup along with a duck burger.  Each element of each dish was perfect.  The fries had a delicate balance and seasoning.  The croutons for the soup were crispy and succulent.  While the OH Food Guy rarely gets dessert, the waitress was quite convincing. It didn’t hurt that one kids spilled a lot of water and we wanted to make up for it. We were not disappointed. While the 4 year old didn’t appreciate the tiramisu, we sure did. It was not overly sweet like Midwest attempts at tiramisu, but it was perfectly done (as was all their food).  This is a restaurant not to miss.  

Portsmouth Ohio has seen better days, its halcyon days being the first half of the 20th century.  The decline of Portsmouth since the 1960s is a textbook rustbelt story.  Luckily Portsmouth has been changing in the past decade and focusing on revitalization.  Patties and Pints is part of the journey.

Patties and Pints focuses on a combination of style and substance.  The substance, the food, is of course our primary focus here, but Patties and Pints aims to wrap it all in style, in this case the style of a Prohibition era Speakeasy bar.

Opening in circa 2017 in an old commercial building at the corner of 2nd and Court, the style of the building fits the Speakeasy style aim. Built in the 1890s, it has filled many roles.  At first glance, the general feel is that it has been here much longer than reality and few would guess that the building was previously an art gallery (very briefly) and many other businesses in its long existence.   

The bar looks and feels the part, and is worth more consideration.  While the décor fully embraces the Prohibition vibe, the quotes on the wall are banal and generic and not related to the history of Portsmouth or the Prohibition in Portsmouth.  This is a little sad since there are a wealth of Prohibition era stories from Portsmouth that could be put on the walls.  Looking deeper, the aim of the décor further conflicts from juxtaposition of the speakeasy style with basic restaurant supply grade tables/chairs.  But, overall, the result looks good.  

Patties and Pints has a very well stocked bar.  The lighting, ceiling and woodwork do try to fit the theme well. The TV of course doesn’t match, but modernization is expected with historic themes, but the theme isn’t helped by the large Pepsi branded cooler, an obvious relic of the 2010s which would be better off hidden.  

The bar offers a wealth of beers on tap and provides a good selection of regional and national craft beers. As the OH food guy mentioned before, a lot can be learned by the focus of a restaurant serves the basics…in this case we will now shift to food. The offerings are very well curated and the menu does not impose itself on you.  You can find good breadth and depth in the options. 

In the menu, the link to Prohibition is maintained with the names of many items being from mobsters or lawmen.  This is a very nice touch, but also a missed opportunity since they are generic mobsters and not associated with local crime events.  As with the generic décor, this is another unfortunate missed opportunity as Portsmouth has a wealth of history in this area and the history has even been featured in the local newspaper recently.   

In our dining at Patties and Pints, we focused on appetizers and sandwiches as they are known for their hamburgers.  In our visits, we ordered chicken wings, fried banana peppers, and multiple sandwiches. The menu is contemporary American in style and offers a wide range of burgers and Po’Boys.  It would make a nice touch for the Po’Boy to be called a Hoagie to fit with the 1920s era theme, but that is more subtle nitpicking and the the variety is very good.  It is a shame the speakeasy focus wasn’t carried a just a little farther, it would have been a very nice touch to have one or two 1920s era dishes on the menu for effect, such as Italian Meatballs (a quintessential 1920s dish), a Waldorf Salad, shrimp cocktail, egg sandwiches, lemon cake (for a good Gatsby reference), stuffed mushrooms, finger food and canapes, or even mining local cookbooks from that era (mostly now in the public domain, probably) for effect.  But, in the end, this is a good restaurant which fills a much needed local gap between fast food, bar food, and more upscale dining.