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El Camino
(207) 725-8228
15 Cushing Street, Brunswick
Hospitality-Friendly and irreverent
Open for dinner 5-9 Tuesday to Thursday, 5-10 Friday and Saturday; later hours in the bar
Entrées $12 to $15
Spicy and inventive Mexican with a devotion to fresh local ingredients
The utterly fresh ingredients and reverence for seafood and meat without hormones or antibiotics show up in inventive, spicy dishes-plates of endlessly reimagined Mexican classics.
Salads and soups start these meals; the soups are always vegan or vegetarian. A black trumpet flan, or a watercress and pomegranate salad, comes in summer. In fall, all specials are made with local organic produce like wild mushroom tacos with heirloom potatoes. Hahn's End Queso Fresco ($12.50) is a find, here added to mixed greens, arugula, tatsoi, and kale cooked down with raisins and pine nuts and served with roasted heirloom tomato sauce.
"My whole philosophy is that good food should be available to everybody," said Eloise Humphrey, chef-owner with her twin sister Daphne Conaskey. The restaurant opened in 2004 in June. Humphrey cooked in high-end restaurants before she started this place, and keeps the prices as low as possible.
Support Your Local Farmer is a ratatouille with smoked cheddar. Everything on the fall menu is from Maine, except avocados and some of the beans. Meat is Sunset Acres Farm pork and beef; chicken is from Maine-ly Poultry; and seafood is from Harbor Fish in Portland. She reserves hundreds of pounds of winter squash from farmers for winter use.
Post Family Farm from St. Albans supplies the cream and milk, and some of that goes into the chocolate pot de crème. Other fall desserts are pumpkin flan with maple caramel; and rice pudding with cajeta, goat's-milk caramel made with milk from Maine goats. Flower Power desserts are made by Maureen Faust, who also sells them at the Crystal Spring Farm farmer's market.