What can Brown do for you? An unexpected classic at the Blue House Café BY ANDY KING
	The Blue House Café The Blue House Café 1081 Brighton Ave, Portland, (207) 347-8050. Open from 6 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Mon. through Fri., and from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sat. and Sun. Take out and catering available. Visa and MC accepted.

The Blue House Café has a Hot Brown on its lunch menu.

Unless you’re from Kentucky, or are an avid watcher of WQED, the Public television station in Pittsburgh, that probably doesn’t mean a whole lot to you — unless, of course, you just made up a dirty definition of "Hot Brown" all on your own. Well, put away your clever sophmoricisms, Jack, because we’re dealing with sandwich royalty here.

I’m not clear on how the Hot Brown made it up to Maine; I don’t know if co-owner Dick Yeaton or his sister, Dulci Whitman, have ever lived in the Kentucky area or are into the whole Derby Day celebration (for more information on the Blue House’s background, see the "Best Dragon’s Lair" entry in this paper’s Best of 2004). What I do know is that the Hot Brown has such a history and tradition that it deserved a lengthy feature on Rick Sebak’s uberwerk Sandwiches You Will Like, the 2002 documentary that finished off his American food triptych (the others, An Ice Cream Show and A Hotdog Program, are equally masterful). Here is a brief history, paraphrased from Sebak:

First created in 1923 by Chef Fred Schmidt, the Hot Brown was originally designed for revelers looking for calories after a night of drinking and dancing at the Brown Hotel in Louisville. From there, it gained momentum by becoming a local favorite on Derby Day — that’s the Kentucky Derby, for all you who don’t play the horses. It quietly became a regular addition to the menus of many local restaurants, and variations on the original recipe became as commonplace as the sandwich that was first served at J. Graham Brown’s fine hotel.

For the record, here’s the original: Make a béchamel (thickened cream sauce), add to it Parmesan cheese and egg yolks. Season to taste. Pour the sauce over sliced bread and freshly cut turkey breast, add a couple of tomato slices and some bacon strips, and cook in a 400-degree oven until bubbly.

The reason I’m harping on the Hot Brown is because it’s indicative of the constant surprises you find when you dine regularly in the smallest restaurants in Maine. It’s also a clunky metaphor for the Blue House Café’s location. A local favorite from south of the Mason-Dixon line squeezed in between Ham Grinders and grilled-cheese sandwiches is about as much a non sequitur as the smallest, coziest restaurant in Portland jammed in between a Burger King, a future Lowes, a Kohls, and one of the busiest highways in America. The Blue House Café is very much just that: a blue house and a café. You eat in what used to be a living room and a dining room, and you can see right into the converted home kitchen. Just in case you’re not sure if this really is a home, there’s a bathtub in the bathroom, complete with reptilian surprise to scare anyone away from a soak between courses.

And there might be time to run a bath while you wait for your food, as each dish is cooked to order and takes a little bit more time than any of the rush-n-go restaurants that make up the Blue House’s closest culinary neighbors. That’s fine. The atmosphere is very much like the dining area of your average bed and breakfast: pleasant and yellow, filled with couples, and complete with cooling muffins on the kitchen window. And the portions are huge. My breakfast choice of Biscuits and Sausage Gravy — a meal unto itself — came with two eggs and a pile of fantastic homefries, and, despite warnings, I got a side of browned Corned Beef Hash to top it off. The coffee comes in barrels, and I would have packed that up and brought it home, too, if I didn’t know wife Jackie and daughter Emaline weren’t into the caffeine trip these days.

So, my cheeseburger was ordered medium-rare and it came medium-well. That’s become a practical regularity in most restaurants today, not particularly excusable, but only really worth a shrug. The Mediterranean Salad had all the typical ingredients to classify it as such: olives, feta, artichoke hearts, Italian dressing, and grilled shrimp. The Hot Brown was a spiced-up version of the original, with the same bread, turkey, and tell-tale bacon strips, but was also topped with grilled onions, pepperoncini, and Hollandaise sauce. It didn’t disappoint, and despite being ordered with a heaping helping of onion rings, was cleared off the plate quite easily.

After breakfast this morning — I’m still feeling full as I type this sentence — and stepping back onto outer Brighton Avenue and all its construction, buffets, box stores, and fast food, the Blue House Café starts to get better and better. It’s unassuming, quiet, considerate, homemade, and everything most of those other stores are not. As I turn to the left with my hands jammed in my pockets, a force of habit from the previous six cold months, a sign from the adjacent Burger King booms out at me everything I need to know about it: "TRY OUR ENORMUS [sic] OMLET [sic] SANDWICH," it shouts, and I feel like walking back into the little restaurant behind me for another barrel of coffee, just to block it out for a little longer.

Andy King can be reached at dinnerwithandy@yahoo.com