According to an article in the Press Herald, The Porthole and two other businesses that were closed due to serious health inspection issues earlier in the week have been cleared to reopen.
“There was nothing identified in that inspection as being a critical violation,” Clegg said. “All the critical violations have been addressed.”
According to the Munjoy Hill News, The Porthole did reopen today.
The Press Herald has published an update on the closure of The Porthole and 2 other adjacent businesses by the city health inspector. The article includes scans of the letter that alerted the city to the problem and the health inspector’s hand written report from earlier this week.
[Health snspector Michele] Sturgeon found “rat droppings everywhere” in the businesses’ liquor storage area and on shelves, as well as “rotting, decayed mouse traps,” according to her report. “TONS of flies all over the food” and “lobster and other exposed seafood,” she wrote.
UPDATE: According to the Munjoy Hill News, The Porthole plans to re-open on Sunday.
According to a report from the Press Herald:
Three waterfront businesses were temporarily closed down on Thursday after the city’s restaurant inspector found evidence of a “serious rat infestation.”
The Porthole, Comedy Connection and the Harbour’s Edge banquet hall were closed after Portland’s restaurant inspector Michele Sturgeon noted excessive and repeat food violations.
The Food & Dining section in today’s Press Herald includes an article about 3 new Maine cookbooks,
Here’s a first look at the Standard Baking Book, followed by the latest on Maine home cooking from food writer and food historian Sandy Oliver, and a new cookbook featuring nearly 50 Portland restaurants from Margaret Hathaway and Karl Schatz.
a guide to eating vegan (with restaurant recommendations),
In the past month, I’ve had a host of people – old and young, men and women, professional chefs and novice cooks – ask for advice on how to eat a totally plant-based diet.
So it must be time to provide a basic starter kit on eating vegan in Maine.
and a profile of the Old Port Wine Merchants.
Owner Jacques de Villier loves wine and cigars but his true passion is people, and that’s what makes him the shopkeeper’s shopkeeper. He’s old school. Plenty of people open stores because they love their product or want money, but neither the product nor the cash is the heart and soul of it. Anyone who doesn’t like de Villier is a wretched misanthrope who needs serious professional help.
From Away has published a guide for aspiring food bloggers.
We’ve learned a lot, and we wanted to share some of the tips we’ve picked up along the way with anyone interested in either starting a site of their own, or improving their existing food blog. In this post, we’ll try to cover everything we’ve learned so far, in an effort to help both new aspiring food bloggers, as well as more established bloggers looking for ways to increase their revenue or improve their existing websites.
Forecaster Columnist Edgar Allen Beem has written about hunger in Maine.
How bad is the problem of hunger in Maine? Mark Swann, Donna Yellen and Elena Schmidt, all of whom work on the front line of poverty at Preble Street Resource Center in Portland, contributed an article to the Winter/Spring 2011 issue of the “Maine Policy Review” on “Hunger in Maine.” They noted that “45 percent of Maine school children are eligible to receive a free or reduced lunch.”
Food Historian, Sandy Oliver, has authored a splendid new cook book, Maine Home Cooking. The book is packed with classic and more contemporary recipes as well as bits of food history, and guidance Oliver has gathered from home cooks all over the state. The publishers sent me an advance copy, and I had a lot of fun this weekend making the recipe for salmon in peas found in the chapter on classic Down East dishes.
For more information see this article in the Portsmouth Herald.
The latest A Slanted View column in the Press Herald explores the ethnic markets that line Forest Ave.
Which brings us to the Woodfords Corner section of Portland’s Forest Avenue. Clustered along a three-block stretch is a culinary profusion of Iraqi markets, Vietnamese restaurants (two across the street from one another!), an African supermarket, an Eastern European shop … it’s a United Nations of food. Even Haggarty’s, the Brit-Indi specialist, is now also serving “Middle Eastern Cuisine.”
Last week, illustrator Katie Wilber and I purchased samples of exotic delicacies from some of these venues. Then we made a buffet dinner, with my family joining in. Here’s some of what we enjoyed.
Jennifer Yu from Use Real Butter has published part a two part report on her food filled trip to Maine. Part 1 deals with with the dinner at El Rayo, and an eating tour in Portland and the Midcoast. Part 2 is about a sailing trip aboard The Schooner J. & E. Riggin.
There is a special love I have for the state of Colorado – the place I call home. You can probably sense that from the way I photograph and write about Colorado in this space. It is not unlike the adoration that Mainers have for Maine. Before last week, Maine was never much on my radar except when good friends of mine waxed nostalgic for it (my pal in graduate school always referred to her as, “Maine, the great state”). But my western-centric attentions were pointed East when my friend, Sharon (who I met at IFBC Seattle in 2009 on a chance shared cab ride), invited me out on behalf of The Maine Office of Tourism and The Schooner J. & E. Riggin for a trip to explore some of their fine state. So yeah, I was in Maine last week and it was… AWESOME.
Jen’s visit was part of a public relations effort for the state by Sharon Kitchens from Delicious Musings and the Maine Department of Tourism that brought 3 prominent bloggers from Colorado, California, and Tennessee to Maine.
Columnist Natalie Ladd provides some Portland dating destination advice in today’s Portland Daily Sun.
All this talk of pre-date meetings and actual first dates, not to mention a second one, got me thinking about Portland and what a perfect place it is to accommodate these kinds of social situations. What if someone was from Meddybemps (pop: 157) or St. Agatha (pop: 756) and had to go to the same hang-out every time they wanted to meet someone?