Category: General News

The Maine Sunday Telegram has published an update on the city’s restaurant inspection program,

The paper revealed that many restaurants hadn’t been inspected for years and that, when the city hired its first health inspector in 2011, 19 out of the first 23 restaurants inspected failed – a failure rate of 82.6 percent. Since then, the failure rate has steadily improved. It was 45.5 percent in 2012 (40 out of 88 restaurants), 10.5 percent in 2013 (33 of 314) and just 6.4 percent in 2014 (31 of 482).

and an article on the crack-down on Portland chef’s use of cooking methods such as sous vide.

In recent months, hundreds of pounds of meat have been embargoed by health officials and are waiting in cold storage until restaurants can prove the food is safe. Several restaurants have been ordered to stop vacuum-sealing their meats, cooking sous vide dishes and offering some types of house-cured meats until they develop special hazard plans and in some cases get formal variances from the Maine Food Code.

The nominees have been announced and voting has begun in the Portland Phoenix 2015 Best of Portland Readership Poll.

Portland Food Map is a nominee this year in two categories:

• Best Food Blog/Column category (along with Portland Food Coma, From Away, Eater Maine and The Daily Dish)
• Best Blog category (along with Spinster Jane, Fighting the Tides, Hilly Town, and Knack Factory).

Now is the time to review the full list of categories/nominees  and to vote for your favorites.

Several food trucks are for sale:

• Don’s Lunch in Westbrook is for sale for $25,000. The Press Herald reports that the owner’s heard from about a dozen people interested in the truck.
• The former Small Axe truck, a 1995 “California style” truck is for sale for $50,000. Co-owner Karl Deuben tells me that they’re currently in talks with a couple interested parties.
• The former El Rayo airstream is for sale for $17,500.
• One of the two Wicked Good Truck vehicles is for sale for $30,000.

On the flip side, at least two new food trucks are set to launch this year: Cannoli Joe’s and an, as yet unnamed, Japanese food truck.

Update: the Press Herald reports that Don’s Lunch has been sold.

The Press Herald reports that a deal has been worked out to negate the eviction notice that Mama’s Crowbar had received so the bar can remain open through the end of their lease on October 1, 2015.

The Press Herald has published an article about Mama’s  Crow Bar and the efforts of their landlord to evict the popular East End bar.

Henley finds herself locked in a legal battle with the building’s owners, who she says are trying to evict her. This week she received an eviction notice saying she failed to pay the March rent. Her attorney, John McVeigh, said the owners failed to come and collect the rent check as they have each month over the past two years.

“Why they’ve decided to try this end run when all they have to do is wait six months and they’ll be done with it anyway, I can’t explain,” McVeigh said.

The Portland Phoenix has kicked-off their 2015 Best of Portland readership poll. The Phoenix readership poll is a 2 step process:

• Step 1 which just started, we nominate entries that are an especially strong candidates in any or all of the categories
• Step 2, later this month the Phoenix will publish a ballot summarizing the top nominees from each category for us all to vote on

There are a plethora of food and drink categories (Food Truck, Chef, Brunch Location, New Restaurant, Bakery, etc) to make nominations in there’s even one for Best Food Blog/Column.

Maine Craft Distilling has kicked off a $20,000 Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign. They plan to use the funds to “outfit the kitchen and install the plumbing” for the 2nd floor of the building that houses their Freeport tasting room.

The Mallet Building is a 2 story, brick building located in downtown Freeport, Maine. The first floor of the building has already been outfitted as a tasting room but we will be expanding to the second floor to provide more local craft spirits, more local craft beer and also small plates from our small “Pop-Up” kitchen. We envision a full Maine Craft experience with local foods, music and of course….beverage. We plan on creating a kitchen where various Maine culinary establishments can expand and share their passion of food from food truck vendors, taquerias, to area chefs and beyond.  We want to make a place where Maine chefs can come and combine their passion with ours and those of local area brewers (which we will have on tap), local area vintner products and other local craft distillers. 

BDN blogger Zack Barowitz has put together a list of some of his favorite value-prived eats in Portland.

When eating out, value may be considered a combination of price, tastiness, and portion size. In other words, a hearty but somewhat “meh” meal for $5 would rate much higher than a slightly  better, but paltry, “eh” meal for $50. This helps level the bar and allows for comparisons between fine-dining and fast food and everything in between.

The March issue of The Bollard includes a feature article about Bonfire and on the history and changing nature of The Wild End of Wharf Street.

Portland Street breakfast restaurant Bintliff’s American Cafe is changing its  name to Bayside American Cafe. The current owners, Joe and Diane Catoggio, purchased the restaurant from Roger Bintliff in 2003. According to the press release,

The name change will be rolled out in the coming months. While the Catoggios are excited to embrace the cafe’s new identity, the message to their customers is clear: the name is the only thing changing. The menu, style and staff that diners have come to know and love will remain the same.