You have to find your way to The Snow Squall Restaurant at the edge of Knightville in South Portland. Start by looking for Cottage Road where it passes the local branch of the U.S. Post Office, then curve around the stone rotary and follow Ocean Street nearly to the water. There, on the right, in the sprawling, brick barn (now a condominium) that once housed trolley cars for the Portland and Cape Elizabeth Railway, is The Snow Squall.

You have to find your way around the menu at this casual, neighborhood favorite, too, because tucked in among the predictable comfort classics (chicken pot pie, ravioli of the day, fish chowder) are a few more flavorful discoveries.

Start with Bang Island Mussels ($12) a large bowl of shellfish topped with a hunk of toasted baguette and a generous sprinkling of parsley. Many restaurants in Maine offer mussels, and some do a fine job. But the mussels here are particularly good – the meats juicy and tender and served in an intense broth that’s flavored with garlic and tomato and a few ribbons of basil. I dipped a piece of bread into the sauce and wondered at the sweetness. It wasn’t sugar, the taste was more subtle. Was it honey? Agave? Wrong on both counts. “It’s surprising, isn’t it?” the waitress said. “Our chef uses marsala,” a fortified wine from Sicily, “plus a few drops of sweet chili sauce.” After polishing off the mussels and the remainder of the bread, I asked the waitress for a soup spoon and finished what was left of the broth. There wasn’t a grain of sand marring the bottom of the bowl. Some purists eschew mussels raised on ropes, claiming that the flavor is compromised. I disagree. Give me grit-free shellfish any day.

Sweetness appeared again in an entrée special, seared scallops with coconut rice and warm ginger slaw ($26). The slaw was crunchy and loaded with kale, cabbage and Brussels sprouts (though I couldn’t make out much ginger?). And the six scallops were nicely seared and tasty with crispy, brown crusts and creamy interiors. Like the mussels, the scallops also had a natural sweetness that the kitchen enhanced, this time with a serving of rice cooked in coconut milk.

The best entrée of the evening was sake-seared salmon ($22), a moist fillet served with sautéed spinach and a quinoa-edamame pilaf. The salmon, too, was pleasantly sweet (it’s marinated in rice wine) and the spinach was fresh-tasting and fragrant, thanks to a few drops of sesame oil.

Owner Heather LaRou, who bought The Snow Squall in 2009, says she includes Asian-inspired dishes on the menu “because they’re on the lighter and healthier side of things … That’s also the reason we serve the quinoa. It’s healthy, it’s flavorful, and I want more people to like it. I also think it’s a natural pairing for salmon.”

The kitchen prepares seafood well, but that skill doesn’t extend to every item on the menu. An “eggplant napoleon” appetizer ($10) of panko-crusted fried eggplant and slices of mozzarella and tomatoes, was finished with a balsamic glaze, but the panko coating was gummy and the glaze lacked any refreshing tartness. Ditto the fried chicken dinner ($17) on the specials board. The coating on the breast was flavorless and so was the meat itself. The only satisfying part of the plate was the mashed potatoes, an appealingly lumpy mound of spuds spiced with plenty of pepper and garlic.

Surprisingly, at a restaurant where sweetness reigns supreme, the desserts were inconsistent. The kitchen was out of house-made apple crisp (two points to the solicitous, young waitress who apologized and said she’d adjust our bill “to thank you for your understanding”), so we tried mini-blueberry pie ($6) with a side dish of ice cream. The pie, from Two Fat Cats bakery in Portland, must have been microwaved; it arrived at our table piping hot, but with a soggy crust. (Note to restaurants: Microwaves wreak havoc with pastry. Crisper – and cooler –is better). After two spoonfuls, we abandoned it for the ice cream. Creamy, sugary peanut butter pie ($6) was a better choice. The pie wasn’t house-made either – it came from Katie Made Bakery in Portland – but it was delicious.

There’s little pretension at The Snow Squall. The dining room has about 10 tables set up near the windows, a few booths tucked into a back corner, and a second bar area with high tops. Prices are fair and the menu lists only six entrees. (The night we visited another six specials were listed on a blackboard.) It’s a neighborhood restaurant where neither the staff, nor the patrons, put on airs.

As we got up to leave, I kept wondering about the name. If the kitchen’s strong suit is seafood and the owner cultivates good relationships with local fishermen and lobstermen, per our waitress, why was the place named after a meteorological event? It’s not: The Snow Squall was a full-rig, three-mast clipper ship built in South Portland in 1851. Suddenly the model over the bar and the brass rails in the dining room made sense.

If you find your way to Knightville, admire the new businesses along Ocean Street. Take in the view of downtown across the water. And stick to the seafood at The Snow Squall.

James H. Schwartz has covered food, travel and architecture for The Washington Post, Downeast, Coastal Living and Southern Living magazines for more than 30 years. Long a commuter between Portland and Washington, D.C., he retired from his job as vice president at the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 2013 and relocated to Maine.

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