The noise of heavy bowling balls smashing into pins is of course a constant at Bayside Bowl, but like the ticking of a clock, it begins to recede from consciousness after a while.

In fact, you can completely stop hearing it if your mouth is dealing with some of the specials on the big board by the bar in the dining and drinking area set a few feet above the lanes.

Additional Photos

Chef James Turner displays a veggie dip and a pulled pork sandwich at Bayside Bowl in Portland. The restaurant has been open since June. John Patriquin/Staff Photographer

Bite into the pastry that makes several menu items extraordinary and you will be lit up with excitement. You might choose to mention it to the server who looks like the strong woman in the Rosie the Riveter poster from World War II.

“Those little fried apple pies? Yeah, I love those too,” she said.

Strong and vital young customers fill the lanes while occasional older folks, like me, are expressing irritation at the animated graphics on the electronic scoreboards. All right, that was a gutter ball, but do I need obnoxious creatures mocking me from on high? It was like having a restaurant reviewer’s snark pop up every time I serve a meal. It’s best to ignore the scoreboard (and maybe this column, for that matter).

But you’ll enjoy the triumph accomplished by the delicate, buttery, pastry-wrapped black trumpet mushrooms and goat cheese ($11). This is an orchestration of pleasure, with the mushrooms divulging lovely juices, the cheese tangy and hot, and the pastry crisp and tender with fat rich butter.

“We’ve been open since June, and some people still think it’s just a bowling alley,” said Louis Simms, floor manager. “But we’ve got a full restaurant here, and the chef tries to use as many fresh ingredients as possible.”

The woman across the table said, upon tasting the chili, “Do they know about onion, and cumin, and cayenne?” Indeed, although the ground beef was savory and the beans fine, the state or condition of being chili had not been achieved. A spark of heat now and then indicated cayenne might have been used, but too meagerly to have much power. Melted cheddar had vanished into the mix, but the sour cream caught my fancy.

Cornbread might have had some seductive power if it hadn’t been cold.

The coconut chicken bites ($7) displeased. The white chicken meat — while nicely coated in grated coconut and skewered with knotted bamboo — was too cold to liberate any good moisture and taste. The menu had warned us, if we hadn’t read too quickly, that the appetizer was “grilled and chilled.”

Sarah Kate’s Original Sin ($6.54), with Tanqueray, orange juice, Prosecco and lemonade, would have been a perfect drink if only I’d been exercising before the meal instead of after it. And Coucou’s Cosmo ($8.41), with Stoli, lime juice and cranberry juice, held the right vigor in its signature martini glass.

Cigar Box Reserve Malbec 2009 ($5.61) from Argentina was tough in a good way, and of course Geary’s Hampshire Special Ale ($3.74) was an elegant ale that deserves its popularity.

Mac and cheese ($9 with two additions; $7 plain) is a work-in-progress as customers mentally taste the different additions the menu offers, from pesto to barbecue sauce and from pulled pork and smoked tempeh to roasted garlic. We opted for more mushrooms and pork belly. The mushrooms were easy to find; the pork belly needed excavation. Both were delicious.

The mac and cheese was presentable and perfect for the kids, but really just a foil for the good stuff. Maybe next time I’ll just order the add-ons.

The chicken chimiganga ($11) was huge, buttressed by bitter radicchio salad but let down by a bland salsa. Best was the crunch of fried tortilla, tender fibers of pulled chicken and good rice.

Lots of other possibilities had been passed over, including a garlic steak wrap, a barbecue pulled pork sandwich, a double cheeseburger, a garden burger, grilled pizza, sweet potato fries, and more from the specials board that looked best of all.

Also on the mid-February specials board were a chicken pot pie with root vegetables and duck gravy, grilled chicken linguine with sundried tomato pesto, and a pizza called a Split, made with grilled steak and onion with roasted red pepper and mozzarella, as well as a veggie “changa” with sweet potatoes and black bean salsa.

But nevertheless, we had gorged ourselves before we submitted stoically to dessert, only to be overmastered by the little fried apple pies with ice cream and real whipped cream ($5). An oval white bowl filled with the stuff put me into an internal frenzy during, and a craving for movement after — accomplished in Lane 3.

Chocolate cake ($6) wasn’t as insidiously fantastic, thank God. It needed its pool of Kahlua cream to be moist, and I could take it or leave it. Big cups of strong coffee, dark-roasted regular and bitter decaf, were another assist to physical sanity.

You can order drinks and food from the attentive servers while you bowl. Maybe that would be the way to go, to keep ahead of the onslaught of nutrition. Enjoy! 

N.L. English is a Portland freelance writer and the author of “Chow Maine: The Best Restaurants, Cafes, Lobster Shacks and Markets on the Coast.” Visit English’s website, www.chowmaineguide.com.

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