About once a month, for family reasons, I go to Maine. The family is deep in central Maine, in a tiny town with no market, bar or restaurant—so to prep for the trip up-country, I try to fly in and out of Portland, which has a killer distillery, a vast amount of craft beer, and great restaurants.

A few weeks ago, I stopped for dinner at Boone’s Fish House and Oyster Room, a 100-year-old waterfront property that was left derelict in the 2000s and revived two years ago. Listed among the appetizers, there was a dish that instantly obsessed me:

But delicious though it sounded, the “quick snack” wasn’t quite right for the dinner my group was composing that night. I promised myself I would