Month: September 2015

This Week’s Events: Roustabout, Phoenix Fare, Zwanze Day, Twilight Dinner, Noshbow, Pépin Lecture Series

| Posted in Events

zwanze2015Tuesday — the local foods networking breakfast is taking place at Local Sprouts.

Wednesday — the Maine Farm and Sea Cooperative is holding a launch party at Broadturn Farm, and the Monument Square Farmers’ Market is taking place.

Thursday — Rostabout is holding a pop-up dinner at Tandem Bakery, Phoenix Fare is taking place in East Bayside, and Maine & Loire is holding a Louis Dresner wine tasting, and C Salt is holding a wine tasting.

Friday — the West End edition of Harvest in the Hood is taking place.

Saturday — Novare Res is hosting the 2015 Cantillon Zwanze Day release, it Maine Open Winery Day, and the Deering Oaks Farmers’ Market is taking place.

Sunday — Damian Sansonetti and Ilma Lopez are the featured chefs for the last Cultivating Community Twilight Dinner of the season, the 16th Annual Trail to Ale is taking place as is the 2nd Annual Noshbow street festival, and  Rosemont is serving a dinner at Wolfe’s Neck Farm in Freeport.

Rabelais at BU — Rabelais owner Don Lindgren will be speaking at Boston University on September 21st. His talk is part of the Pépin Lecture Series in Food Studies and Gastronomy and is entitled Anatomy of a Cookbook. “Beyond the recipes, cookbooks reveal a great deal about the authors who write them and the cooks who use them. This presentation will look at clues cookbooks reveal about social and cultural context, and consider how evidence of reader use illuminates issues of ownership, succession, revision, criticism, navigation, and more.”

For more information on these and other upcoming food happenings in the area, visit the event calendar.

If you are holding a food event this week that’s not listed above, publicize it by adding it as a comment to this post.

4½ Star Review of Union

| Posted in Reviews

The Maine Sunday Telegram has given Union, the restaurant in The Press Hotel, 4½ stars.

Good news. Union, the restaurant that opened four months ago off the lobby of Portland’s new Press Hotel, is the real thing – a contemporary American farm-to-table restaurant that grabs you with its good looks, then sweeps you off your feet with dishes as delicious as they are ravishing. Dinner here is no fast-to-fade one-night stand. It’s a relaxing opportunity to savor and enjoy executive chef Josh Berry’s assured and consistent cooking. And you’ll wake up the next morning with a very broad smile on your face.

Gather’s Guide to Portland

| Posted in Reviews

Gather magazine has published their guide to Portland.

At every turn down Portland’s cobblestones, another study in self-determination seemed to greet us. It was not the absence of an appreciation for the beautiful or delightful. To the contrary, Angela Adams’ nature-inspired homegoods, Portland Dry Goods’ curated corners, The Press Hotel’s typewritten nooks and Eventide Oyster Co.’s restorative flavors are just a few examples of a sweeping reverence for the good life. It felt like a collective belief in a sort of manifest destiny, the ability to drive a new way forward in a place that feeds and accepts and encourages and is proud of its creative class…

Eateries and bars mentioned in the article include: Allagash, Bard, Central Provisions, Dobra, Eventide, Fore Street, Grace, Harbor Fish, Honey Paw, Hunt & Alpine, LFK, Miyake, Piccolo, Shipyard, Slab, Standard, Street & Co, Tandem and Two Fat Cats.

Under Construction: Roustabout

| Posted in Under Construction, Events

roustabout_construction

Roustabout(twitter, instagram, facebook, website) is making very good progress on building out their space on Washington Ave. Shown here is the 18-seat bar that occupies the right side of the dining area. The restaurant will also include a private dining room that will seat up to 20. Owners Kit Paschal and Anders Tallberg are on track to open the restaurant later this Fall.

Roustabout is serving a pop-up dinner on Thursday at Tandem Bakery. Tickets are available on Eventbrite.

Beard House Dinners: Piccolo, Hunt & Alpine

| Posted in Events

A pair of Portland establishments will be servings meals at the James Beard House in NYC later this year:

  • Piccolo will be serving an dinner on November 21st that highlights their take on cuisine from the Abruzzi and Calabria regions of Italy.
  • Hunt & Alpine will be serving a 5-course cocktail dinner on December 4th to celebrate Repeal Day. The meal will be a “full Scandinavian holiday-style dinner”.

Keep a watch on the JBF Events page where more details on the menus and ticket sales will be posted later this year.

Review of Evo

| Posted in Reviews

Peter Peter Portland Eater has reviewed Evo,

The food was really good and came to about 180 nuggets after tip. That included six drinks and 6 plates. It wasn’t inexpensive, but EVO came through, providing us with serious, quality food. Portland now has another Mediterranean place that will pump you full of awesome vittles with a great atmosphere and excellent service. It’s getting tougher by the day to choose where eat, but I think that’s a good problem to have.

The Hop Yard

| Posted in Profiles

The Press Herald has posted a report on The Hop Yard, a Maine-based hop farm that’s helping making Maine beer a bit more local.

In a few weeks, all the hops surrounding us will be harvested and used by Maine and New Hampshire breweries. Allagash, Sebago, Rising Tide, Austin Street and Tributary brewing companies all plan on brewing beers with hops grown by the Hop Yard.

Though the hop industry in Maine is far from being able to supply Maine brewers with all their hops, Keating is optimistic that The Hop Yard will continue to grow in scale and other farmers will follow their model, helping Maine become a thriving producer of hops.

Interview with Joe Catoggio

| Posted in People

The Portland Phoenix has published an interview with Joe Catoggio, co-owner with his wife Diane of the Bayside American Cafe.

LO: Can you tell me a little bit about the menu?
JC: We inherited a brunch menu. As I said, he’d [Roger Bintliff] been winning “Best Brunch” quite often. We largely stayed with that same theme. We just tried to refine it a little bit, change it up about 15-20 percent every year … bring in some new items, lose some items. We’ve downsized the menu a bit so we could focus more on specials. The Louisiana Bayou Benedict (grilled andouille sausage, homemade corncakes, two poached eggs and spicy Cajun hollandaise sauce) was a special that we created for a benefit for Hurricane Katrina. It became a menu item directly after that because it was just so popular. It’s one of our biggest sellers. … We’re very well known for our corned beef hash. We created a special last summer, which was a cinnamon bun pancake, and that’s taken off unbelievably.