Category: General News

Chefs at Vinland and Hugo’s/Eventide are featured in this Wall Street Journal article about the New England local food movement,

Griddled until golden but still tender at the center, it arrived nestled up against crescents of delicata squash, in a pool of sage-scented melted goat cheese that evoked the world’s most rarified Welsh rarebit. A tousle of tiny arugula stems and sunshiny tatsoi blossoms topped it all off. The dish was simultaneously surprising and comforting. It tasted of place and possibility. And like everything else on the menu at Vinland, chef David Levi’s fledgling experiment in Down East cuisine, not one morsel of it had started life more than a few dozen miles from my mouth.

The Gorham Grind is in the last day of a crowdfunding campaign to raise money to launch their coffee food truck, Anywhere Coffee Bar (twitter). There goal is to raise $9,000 and they’re currently just shy of $6,000.

Update: The campaign reached it’s goal yesterday raising a total of $9,130.

Follow along with Portland Phoenix food columnist Kate McCarty on her visits to four local shops to learn more about coffee processing and coffee tasting.

While sipping the four samples, my thoughts went like this: “Hmm, tastes like coffee… also tastes like coffee… yup, coffee again… Woah!” The fourth coffee tasted radically different due to the processing method. The Ethiopian coffee from Slate was naturally processed, meaning the fruits of the coffee plant, called “cherries” (inside of which you’ll find the “bean” or seed), are dried in the sun rather than mechanically pulped and then dried. The resulting coffee frequently is full of berry flavors; this one tasted like someone had infused it with blueberry syrup.

The Press Herald has published a report on the results of a local foods survey released yesterday by Maine Food Strategy.

In a survey of food-buying habits, nearly 80 percent of Maine consumers said they prefer purchasing their produce, meat and fish locally, primarily because they want to support their farmers, fishermen and community businesses.

The Portland Daily Sun, The Forecaster and the Press Herald have published reports on the upcoming visit of Restaurant: Impossible to film a show at Uncle Andy’s.

On June 9, “Restaurant: Impossible” host Robert Irvine and crew will take over the 60-year-old diner from owners Dennis and Tina Fogg for a 36-hour, $10,000 marathon restaurant rescue mission before a grand re-opening June 11.

The breakfast-and-lunch diner staff, menu and aesthetic will get an extreme makeover – as well as some tough love – for an episode to be aired later this year.

From Away has published an article about Kate McCarty’s new book, Portland Food: The Culinary Capital of Maine.

Portland, Maine is fortunate to have so much incredible food, and even more fortunate to have such gifted local writers to document it. Kate McCarty’s new book, “Portland Food: The Culinary Capital of Maine” is the kind of volume you thumb through again and again, admiring its thoughtfulness, research, and the care the author took in crafting it.

Malcolm and Jillian have just completed their own book about Maine food and I am eagerly awaiting my copy from Amazon.

The Food Network show Restaurant Impossible will be in South Portland next month where they’ll be filming at Uncle Andy’s.

New owners of the Danforth plan eventually open a restaurant in the Inn, according to reports from the Press Herald and Bangor Daily News.

“I think the restaurant and how it looks needs a different concept. It will be fine dining like Natalie’s. It will also be relaxed fine dining like Natalie’s,” he said. “But we are looking at different cuisine and concepts and talking to different chefs right now to come up with something Portland would like to have, embrace and would also fit our brand and what our guests are expecting from us.” [PPH]

In other recent food news:

• The Press Herald reports that Joe’s Smikeshop has changed their name to Joe’s Super Variety
• Urban Eye has a report on the lounge in the new Hyatt hotel
• Today’s Press Herald an article about Mainers who run lobster food trucks outside the state
• The Bangor Daily News reports that the City Council has taken the procedural step of forwarding Sangillo’s liquor license denial to the state
• The Golden Dish paid visits to Susan’s and Fishermen’s Grill

The Bangor Daily News has published a report on the growing Maine distilled spirits industry.