It was dinnertime on a Friday, and my friend Jennifer and I decided to go out for a spontaneous dinner. But without reservations, we knew finding a table in Portland would be challenging. Drifters Wife had a 45-minute wait just to sit at the bar. At Baharat, a little more off the beaten path, the line of people waiting to be seated reached the door. After a few more tries, Jennifer, frustrated, said what all of us who live here in diners’ paradise have opined at one time or another: “How can we have so many restaurants here, and we can’t get into any of them?”

Then a light bulb went off, and I suggested we try Bruno’s, a traditional, red sauce Italian-American restaurant on Allen Avenue in North Deering. Their parking lot – yes, there’s parking! – is always at least half-full, but it’s not one of the peninsula’s shiny new things, and surely they’d have room for two, right? My friend was skeptical, but when we arrived, we were seated almost immediately, at 7 p.m. on a Friday, in a nearly full dining room. Glory hallelujah. And after splitting an appetizer portion of the light and heavenly eggplant parmigiana, my friend was sold on the place. She returned the following week for lunch.