Notwithstanding nearly unanimous meteorological opinion to the contrary, today has turned into a very pleasant day indeed! Also notwithstanding objective, verifiable evidence very much to the contrary, such weather leads me to believe that I am sufficiently young and energetic to blow off the obligations of the day and go biking or gardening or some such activity and then catch up on the office work later. In a familiar victory of hope over reason, I shall uncharacteristically attempt brevity in the dubious belief that perhaps I’ll escape the office in time to do something outdoors this afternoon!

So in this spirit of magical thinking, we come to the epitome of grounded good sense — and taste — the 3-course $17.99 Wednesday Special!

Wednesday Special

This week’s $17.99 Wednesday Special begins with a salad of kale, a wonderful leafy green touted as providing all manner of healthful benefits, but which is certain at a minimum to taste better than most of the tonics touted in times past, especially when complimented with a creamy Dijon dressing as Chef Lavelle promises this one will be!.

The main course will be one of the few overtly vegetarian dishes I liked even as a child: eggplant parm over pasta, in this instance bucatini. For dessert, one of the glories of the spring garden, rhubarb, will send us head-over-heals in paroxysms of pleasure in the form of a rhubarb upside down cake!

For a wine special we’ll look to hills of east central Italy for a delightful Montepulciano d’ Abruzzo from Vigneti del Sole, a company founded in Verona in 1925 by two brothers who had moved north in search of their fortune and found success. The brothers’ grandchildren returned to their southern roots where they continue to make wines that just about max out the quality-to-price ratio. Only $5.00 a glass!

Friday Night Jazz May 18

This Friday we welcome back Mr. Ahmad Hassan Muhammad at the keyboard. There’s a great video of a radio broadcast Hassan did in 2010 with Rich Tozier on MPBN the fall after his graduation from Bowdoin highlighting his versatility as a musician and composer. There’s a much shorter promo for Bowdoin featuring a younger Hassan here in his freshman year. A man of prodigious talent, we are always glad when Ahmad Hassan Muhammad can fit Friday Night Jazz at Solo Bistro into his schedule as he has this Friday from 6:30 to 9:30 PM!

As always, we look forward to seeing you on Front Street in downtown Bath, where one’s never too old to play hookey!

Pia & Will Neilson, Owners

This rainy Tuesday marks the end of a brief stretch of some beautiful weather! Saturday evening I happened to stroll by the local salt marsh about an hour after moonrise. The tide was up, covering the still stubbly spartina grass; the air was cool, still and moist, and the full moon was still low enough that its light was yet yellowish. This full moon was a perigee or “super” moon, which is brighter and larger than usual – and it was bright indeed! But what brought me up short was how the reflection off the water illuminated the very air, so that it glowed and in turn lit up the trees in shadow under the moon. It was shy of supernatural, but just!

Similarly the rosy-fingered Dawn this morning was downright Homeric, blue and light grey above vivid greens, yellows, reds and pinks of blossoming trees and shrubs, sidelit by Phoebus Apollo’s approach in pink reddening to gold fading to yellow as his chariot cleared the tree line to the east while to the west the darkening grey of the coming rain rolled toward us. Such are the moments that make the long wait for spring in Maine feel like a bargain!

And of course, speaking of bargains that are worth the wait, who can forget the 3-course $17.99 Wednesday Special at Solo Bistro!

Wednesday Special

This week’s $17.99 Wednesday Special is perhaps again influenced by events in the wider world. There is a certain coincidence at any rate between the Secretary of State’s most recent travels and the menu for the Solo Bistro Wednesday Special, though Chef Tony Lavelle might disclaim it. The first course does little to elucidate the connection, being merely a salad of mixed greens with a cilantro-mint vinaigrette. The main course makes it straightforward, however: chicken makhani, or butter chicken curry over a bed of spiced chickpeas and jasmine rice. The mild but full flavored chicken makhani is a favorite from the sub-continent – just delicious! For dessert we look southeasterly for purple rice with a mango coulis. If you’re not familiar with Indian cuisine, this will be a great opportunity to give it a try!

For a wine special we’ll look to the classic accompaniment to a curry, a riesling, in this case a German one from the Mosel region, J&H Selbach Piesporter Michelsberg Riesling Kabinett. This is an entry level Riesling from one of Germany’s top winemakers that we’re trying out. Let us know what you think. Only $5.00 a glass!

Friday Night Jazz May 11

This Friday the New Space at Solo will host Harpswell’s own songstress, Dorie Barnes, accompanied by Jesse Feinberg at the keyboard. Rumor has it that a couple of other up-and-coming jazz vocalists will be dining at Solo on Friday and may sit in with Dorie for a bit as well – always a good time when that happens! Friday Night Jazz, every Friday at Solo Bistro from 6:30 to 9:30 PM!

As always, we look forward to seeing you on Front Street in downtown Bath, where whether ones inclinations run to the Homeric or the sophomoric, one can take a culinary tour without have to cross the wine dark sea

Pia & Will Neilson, Owners

Spring has found its feet for sure! The ospreys are back, and not just them! Kingfishers, grouse, redwing blackbirds, robins, and now groups of swallows and swifts arriving to welcome the unofficial state bird, the “billbird,” or common mosquito, as it emerges from the many bodies of fresh and brackish water with which we are blessed in Maine. No doubt the billbird’s partner in crime, the black fly, has already made its presence felt a little inland as well. The air is still cool but the sun is warm – it really gives you an itch to get outdoors, especially before the outdoors returns the feeling!

Speaking of barely controllable urges involving a little scratch — really little for the quality — tomorrow brings another edition of the three course $17.99 Wednesday Special at Solo Bistro!

Wednesday Special

This week’s $17.99 Wednesday Special starts off with a cucumber romaine salad dressed in a balsamic vinaigrette. For the main we go to the Gulf of Maine in the form of an herb crusted filet of fresh Atlantic Pollock with a sundried tomato basil relish. And since a main course from the Gulf of Maine of course deserves a sweet course to cap the meal, the Pollock and its purchasers will get their deliciously just desserts in the form of lemon cake with simple icing. Simply superb!

For a wine special we’ll head for the left coast and Oregon’s Rogue Valley, with a pinot blanc from the Foris Winery. Clean and crisp without being austere, it should be a delightful gustatory companion to the food. Only $5.50 a glass. Do let us know what you think, as these wine specials are a good way to try out wines that might be worth adding to the list!

Friday Night Jazz April 20

For the first time in seven years of Friday Night Jazz at Solo Bistro, a scheduling miscue has left the bill incomplete this Friday night. The queen of vocal jazz in Maine, Ms. Tracey MacLean, will be back in the Bistro, this much we know. The question of who will pay her musical court and on what instrument remains open. So especially for mystery fans, this Friday we’ll feature the Mistress of Mystery, the Midcosat’s own Maven of Modern Music, the marvelously melodious Ms. MacLean and her as-yet-anonymous accompanist from 6:30 to 9:30 PM!

As always, we look forward to seeing you on Front Street in downtown Bath, where the unaccompanied and the unknown are neither for long!

Pia & Will Neilson, Owners

Dawn today in the salt marshes outside Bath was a markedly noisier affair than it has been for some time. The birds have been filtering back for a month now, and today’s clear sunrise had them singing lustily. The crescendo of this crepuscular chorus is still a way off, but matins today morphed from tentative to definitive. The austere purity of a winter dawn is a lovely thing, but no match for the thrill of birdsong on an early spring morning!

Along with the daffodils and budding trees, there’s a little bit of renewal going on at Solo too this season, and the first evidence of this debuts in the New Space tonight in the form of a new step and landing, replacing the “temporary” platform we built three or four years ago. And what better excuse to check out the change than the three course $17.99 Wednesday Special?

Wednesday Special

 This week the $17.99 Wednesday Special heads for Mexico and Cuba. The first course will be a corn and black bean soup, which will be followed by “old clothes” with rice – ropa vieja con arroz. This hearty Cuban dish consists of slow-braised and shredded beef with onions and bell peppers in a tomato sauce served with rice. Chocolate cake with chipotle crème anglaise will round out this brief culinary circuit of the western Caribbean. Sweet!

For a wine special we’ll take a shot at a new wine we’re trying out – Masserie Pisari Primitivo, from an organic estate in southern Puglia, right down in the heel if Italy. The Primitivo grape is genetically the same as zinfandel, but the Italian style of wine making usually yields a tighter and more structured product than the more fruit-forward California style. Only $5.50 a glass – and let us know what you think!

Friday Night Jazz April 6

This Friday Ahmad Hassan Muhammad returns to the New Space with his keyboard. He first played at Solo during his freshman year at Bowdoin some six years ago, and he has been a favorite of Solo diners from the get go. So if you’re a fan of piano jazz, get going down to Solo this Friday night from 6:30 to 9:30 PM for Ahmad Hassan Muhammad!

As always, we look forward to seeing you on Front Street in downtown Bath, where where birds of all feathers flock together!

 Pia & Will Neilson, Owners

After a week of summery weather we are definitely back into early spring in Maine – wind chills of 5 below to 10 above at 9 am this morning had flora and fauna alike – including the two legged variety – looking noticeably less exuberant than at this time last week!

One of my favorite places in Bath is the YMCA. Architecturally it’s one of the nicest YMCA’s I have known, and the social environment, with folks from all walks of life, stands out as much as the built. It seems the weight room staff have differing levels of tolerance for the televisions in the room, but at some point during the morning someone always mutes them, after which one’s ability to follow what’s going on is limited and one is more or less forced to construct one’s own narrative.

Such was the case recently when a story headlined “What do you want to do before you die?” aired on the Today Show. A bucket list kind of thing, I suppose. I was mildly surprised to find myself thinking I had no idea what I wanted to do before I died. While I suppose there may have been a time when I might have had a ready answer, now the question seems largely irrelevant – anything that can be “done” or “achieved” feels to me like it would be beside the point at the end of life. Not that I don’t have goals or things I’d very much like to do, but rather that process seems more the issue to me these days than product. Is this some individual spiritual evolution? A personal pledge of allegiance in the old faith versus works controversy? A nascent Buddhist streak? (If you know the answer, please write it on the hull of a Sundeer 64 or equivalent and send it to me c/o the Kennebec Tavern Marina . . . .) For some reason Wordsworth’s poem “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood,” comes to mind, a poem I have not read – nor barely thought of – for at least 37 years until today!

So anyway, like I was saying, the Bath YMCA is a pretty interesting place, and if you haven’t been, you should go!

And let me just say that I consider this missive notice to the producers of the Today Show that the $17.99 Wednesday Special at Solo Bistro is to die for, and they should definitely put it on their bucket lists! Check it out:

Wednesday Special

The $17.99 Wednesday Special this week begins with a spicy chipotle Caesar salad, which, the Food Lover’s Companion reminds us, originated in Mexico in 1924, though without the chipotle! This will be followed by a main course of ocean perch with red bell pepper and ginger jelly that is one of the tastiest condiments I have ever enjoyed – kudos to Chef Lavelle. A bit piquant, a tad sweet, it’s dynamite on fish! For dessert, the kitchen will be staying with the sweet and sour theme with a key lime tart.

Given the prominence of spicy flavors in the first two courses, we’ll sell the semi-dry version of our regular Finger Lakes Dry Riesling from Dr. Konstantin Frank’s winery by the glass, in addition to the dry. Two delightful wines from the pioneer of the Riesling varietal in this country.

Friday Night Jazz March 30

This Friday we close out the month of March with vocalist Sue Sheriff, accompanied by Peter Blue at the keyboard, for Friday Night Jazz. “Sue & Blue” made their first appearance in the New Space last year and have been back several times since to the delight of diners and devotees of downtown jazz in our demographic! It may be chilly again outside, but it’ll be hot at Solo this Friday with Sue & Blue from 6:30 to 9:30 PM!

As always, we look forward to seeing you on Front Street in downtown Bath, where the child may be father to the man, but there’s plenty of room at the table for both!*

Pia & Will Neilson, Owners

* “The Child is Father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.”

(From another Wordsworth poem “My heart leaps up when I behold,” quoted at the outset of “Ode: Intimations of Immortality.”)

So comes the sun, skipping over the equator on a northbound bounce in the celestial game of Pong between the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer! This seductive warmth has me looking over my shoulder though, wondering if it is just a set up for a meteorological sucker punch. The crocuses and daffodils have no qualms however, and the peepers are singing with unself-conscious abandon – perhaps examples to follow when there is nothing that one can do anyway! It is sweet while it lasts, and the rest will take care of itself as it may.

Something else that’s pretty sweet – and dependable to boot – is the three course $17.99 Wednesday Special, to wit:

Wednesday Special

The $17.99 Wednesday Special this week begins with an iceberg lettuce salad and house-made blue cheese dressing. The main course will be Maine shrimp alla Fiorentina — shrimp, spinach, and a cheese mornay sauce over bucatini pasta, those thick and hollow spaghetti strands.

Dessert will be a lemon cake, which Katie intends to involve with raspberries in a form she has yet to determine, so we’ll call it a lemon cake surprise!

In the wine department, we’ll propose the delightful chard from Aubert de Villaine’s “Les Clous” vineyard, which has good acidity and minerality that will stand up to the mornay sauce without giving up on the fruit. A nice chance to try this good quality white burgundy by the glass at $8!

Friday Night Jazz March 23

This Friday the multi-talented Flash Allen returns with his keyboard, voice and sense of humor to the New Space for Friday Night Jazz. If you’re in the mood for good food, good drink and good jazz on an early spring Friday, you know where to find it! The Equinoctial Flash, from 6:30 to 9:30 PM this Friday at Solo Bistro!

As always, we look forward to seeing you on Front Street in downtown Bath, where a spot of prematurely sprung spring is not to be spurned!

Pia & Will Neilson, Owners

Restaurant Week 2012 has come to a close, but what a week it was — mostly because of our trial run of lunch. The response was surprising and gratifying! Thank you to all of you who came out to try our lunch service — it will take a little time to digest, so to speak, the experience, but it is safe to assume that lunch will be reappearing for a longer run, for the summer at a minimum!

For the present we find ourselves in Denmark, where we came for a birthday and are staying for a funeral, covering the good spectrum of joy and sorrow in a single visit. I call it the “good spectrum” because the sorrow end of it actually extends much further, to our collective shame, to the horrendous kinds of things we see reported daily in the media.

The death here in question was of the patriarch of Pia’s family, though he would have disapproved of that characterization, a modest man who loved nothing so much as pottering about in his garden. He spent his life making the trains run smoothly in Denmark, and for a short, terrible period in the early 1940’s, he was obliged by his sense of patriotic duty to blow them up as well. He was decorated and celebrated, but he was always absolutely clear that he would have much preferred not to have been forced to the acts he undertook, though he was proud of his service to king and country, and grateful to have survived. He was an uncommon commoner, a man who embodied the best of “civilized” humanity in the face of its worst aspects. We will return at the end of the week rather than the middle.

In the meantime, Solo Bistro will continue to provide some the best deals you can find anywhere for fresh, natural and local food prepared by pros. And not least among those is the $17.99 Wednesday Special, coming right up!

Wednesday Special

This week’s $17.99 Wednesday Special begins with a simple iceberg lettuce salad with house-made blue cheese dressing, then continues with a classic beef bourguignon over egg noodles, a dish that originated in the French province of Burgundy, where it started as a peasant dish. Beef was slowly braised in red wine – presumably to tenderize it – with the addition of whatever was handy, and it has evolved into one of the archetypes of French cuisine. It’s heritage is shared by several of the dishes we have featured over the winter for Wednesday specials, including coq au vin and gougères or savory cream puffs. Of beef bourguignon Julia Child wrote, “[it is] certainly one of the most delicious beef dishes concocted by man!”

Dessert will be a simple and simply delicious lemon cake.

For a wine special we’ll feature the first new South African wine we’ve had on the menu for several years, a very affordable blend of cabernet sauvignon and petit verdot from Stellenbosch producer Warwick Estates called “The First Lady.” Only $6.00 a glass!

Friday Night Jazz March 16

This Friday Dos Canosos (“two grey haired guys,” if memory serves) return with their much appreciated brand of latin jazz played on a variety of guitars and guitar-like instruments (eg the “tres,” a Cuban three string guitar) plus a little percussion from time to time. Gary Wittner, one of the leading exponents of guitar jazz in Maine(guitar anything if truth be told!), is one of the grey-haired guys in question, and Cuban American singer, guitarist and percussionist Raoul Freyre is the other. Dos Canosos from 6:30 to 9:30 PM this Friday at Solo Bistro!

As always, we look forward to seeing you on Front Street in downtown Bath, where a good meal is only one among many reasons to be thankful!

Pia & Will Neilson, Owners