Posted by Michael Stern on November 04, 2009
In August, 2009, when I visited the St. John River Valley in Maine to attend the annual Muskie Derby and Ploye Festival, old-timers directed me to Dolly's (formerly Una's) for chicken stew and ployes. From the road, Dolly's doesn't look all that special; and the menu, at first glance, appears to be a roster of straightforward diner cooking. But next to the cash register is a hot griddle and a pitcher full of ploye batter, ready to pour. Ployes are a farmhouse tradition around here: crepe/pancakes made with buckwheat batter, served as a side dish for mopping up supper's gravy or in a stack along with maple syrup or molasses at breakfast. Dolly's ployes are butter-yellow with a faint green tinge created by the buckwheat (which is botanically an herb rather than a grain) and they arrive three by three too hot to handle. They are a just-right companion for the kitchen's marvelous Acadian chicken stew, which is crowded with large pieces of meat, nuggets of potato, and little free-form dumplings plus a measured scattering of herbs.
Waitress Bernice Michaud, who has been at Dolly's for a quarter century, asked if I had ever tasted the kitchen's creton. "Huh?" said I, never even having heard of creton. Bernice hurried back to the kitchen to fetch a ramekin full, then stood watch in eager anticipation as I spread some across a hot ploye. Similar to pate, creton has a foreboding visceral appearance and is as rich as fatback, but Dolly's version is bright and flowery, a refreshing burst of unexpected spices, including cinnamon. "Everybody has their own little secret for the creton," Bernice said with mischievous glee in hopes she would have the opportunity to refuse to reveal what goes into Dolly's.
Overall: Worth planning a day around
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Reviewers "Must Eats" List
Acadian Chicken Stew
($5.00)
Ployes
($2.00)
"Acadiana on a paper placemat: homey chicken stew accompanied by a stack of griddle-hot ployes. A meal like this makes all the by-rote hand-wringing about the homogenization of American food seem rather jejune."
Michael Stern
"Ployes are cooked only on one side, so the underneath gets crisp and the top is a crowded constellation of little bitty holes and furrows that hold massive amounts of butter or syrup."
Michael Stern
"Old-timers like molasses on their ployes. Most of the younger Acadians I met preferred butter and cinnamon sugar."
Michael Stern
"Dolly's is a modest, family-focused restaurant, a fixture along Route 1 for several decades. It is easy to have a good and filling meal here for well under $10."
Michael Stern
"You'll hear as much French as English in this part of Maine, where the culture is so distinct that the locals make fun of the accents of people from Downeast Maine who say 'ayuh' for 'yes.'"
Michael Stern
"Fields of buckwheat -- a botanical relative of rhubarb -- give the landscape a pink hue."
Michael Stern
"Coffee and ployes will be on your table almost as soon as you sit down at Dolly's. 'It is hot and it is ready,' announced waitress Bernice Michaud when I walked in and asked if they had a grill for cooking ployes."
Michael Stern
