NYT 2024 List: The Alna Store

| Posted in Reviews

The New York Times has included The Alna Store in their 2024 restaurant list. The list represents the paper’s “50 favorite places in America right now.”

Over the last 12 months, reporters and editors traveled to nearly every state scouting restaurants for our annual list. This year, it was about spaces as much as places. We ate hyperlocal dishes served out of a trailer in a rural Virginia field, experienced one of America’s most refined seasonal tasting menus in one of San Francisco’s most refined rooms, dined on Creole fare in a strip mall down the road from NASA in Texas and joined a party behind a tattered ranch house in Johns Island, S.C.

With regards to The Alna Store, food reporter and columnist Melissa Clark wrote,

…And in front, an ambitious restaurant serves a thoroughly of-the-moment, local menu that’s full of sophisticated touches without being at all pretentious. The house margarita is made with mezcal; the buttermilk wedge salad is dusted with crispy fried shallots and capers; and the shrimp topping a mound of creamy grits are coated in warm, fragrant spices, then seared until caramelized…

The Alna Store is located in the Midcoast town of Alna. It opened in late December 2022. The Maine Sunday Telegram gave the restaurant a 4½ star rating in a review published last year.

East Bayside Dining Guide

| Posted in Reviews

Boston Magazine has published an article about where to eat and drink in East Bayside.

Perhaps you’ve already spent some time exploring the incredible food and drink scene in Portland, Maine. But one area you may have overlooked is East Bayside—an increasingly delectable neighborhood inside the parameters of Congress Street, Washington Avenue, Route 295, and Franklin Arterial that’s home to young families and a vibrant East African community.

The article highlights The Cheese Shop, Forage, Hardshore, Lil Chippy, Magissa, Maine & Loire, Minato, Moonday Coffee,  Onggi, Quanto Basta, Ramona’s, Red Sea, Rising Tide, and Root Wild, Sticky Sweet, Terlingua, and The Shop.

Upcoming Food & Dining Events

| Posted in Events

All Week – Maine Lobster Week is taking place.

Wednesday – Space Gallery is screening the movie Holding Back the Tides. The Alna Store is serving a seafood dinner in collaboration with Drifters Fish.

Thursday – The Calamity Jayne neighborhood cookout is taking place at Ocotillo.

Saturday – The Maine Needham Festival is taking place in Wiscasset. The African Festival is taking place. Salt + Pepper Social in Damariscotta is holding their last multi-course vegan dinner of the season. The Miller’s Table in Skowhegan is serving a Harvest dinner.

Saturday/Sunday – The Pemaquid Oyster Festival is taking place in Boothbay Harbor.

September 30 – The Bitter Ball Negroni Contest is taking place at Via Vecchia, and Anoche is holding their next Paella Night.

October 3 – Wayside Food Programs is holding their annual fundraising event Inside Wayside.

October 5 – Oxbow is holding their annual Good from the Woods event in Newcastle.

October 6 – Dandelion Spring Farm in Bowdoinham is hold their annual Fermentation Fair.

October 10 – Apres is holding their annual Apple Tasting.

October 13 – The 16th Annual Open Creamery Day is taking place. Dandelion Spring Farm is holding a Harvest Dinner. Salt Wharf is holding the 2nd Annual Camden Oyster Festival.

October 19 – McDougal Orchards in Springvale is holding their 5th Annual Apple Tasting.

October 20 – Great Maine Apple Day is taking place in Unity.

October 23 – Mrs. Gee Free Living and Sur Lie are collaborating on a gluten-free dinner.

October 24 – The Maine Center for Entrepreneurs is holding the biennial Maine Food Producer Showcase & Golden Fork Awards at Brick South on Thompson’s Point.

October 24-26 – Harvest on the Harbor is taking place.

October 29 – The annual HospitalityMaine summit is taking place at Sugarloaf.

Planning a wedding, holding a business event, or hosting visitors from away? Our printed guides are a great resource to help your guests explore the Maine restaurant scene.
25-packs of the Portland and Midcoast pocket guides are now available on our online store.

Maine Food & Dining News: Warren, Lincolnville, Camden, Downeast, Midcoast

| Posted in Maine

New food and dining developments are taking place all across Maine. Here are some recent updates to keep you in the know:

For a statewide guide to eating and drinking see the Maine Food Map—a growing list of coffee shops, bars, restaurants, bakeries, cafes, and other food and dining businesses in all of Maine’s 16 counties.

Best Banh Mi in America

| Posted in Reviews

The Infatuation has included Banh Appetit in their list of the 13 Best Banh Mi Across America.

Banh Appetit is a straightforward and reliable Vietnamese takeout spot in Portland, Maine. But leaving it at that would be like saying Costco’s just a grocery store. The excellent lemongrass beef bánh mì is the type of meal that can turn an awful day around. Stop by on Saturday evenings to check out the Mama Le menu, where you can get a bunch of different vegetarian and vegan dishes like the banh mi chay—a sandwich stuffed with rice powder, glass noodles, sweet chili, and vegan mayo—freshly prepared by the owners’ actual mama.

Golden Lotus Has Closed

| Posted in Closings

Golden Lotus (website, facebook, instagram) has closed. A sign in the window at 511 Congress Street reads “Closed for Good”.  The owners have posted a brief statement on facebook,

Thank you all so much for the last ten years. We truly appreciate all of the love and support you have given us. We look forward to some much needed rest with family and friends. Hopefully, you are able to find another restaurant you like (almost) as much as Golden Lotus!

Upcoming Food & Dining Events

| Posted in Events

Tuesday – Le Mu Eats in Bethel is hosting a Mexican food pop-up with chef Alan Arciga.

Thursday – Mrs. Gee Free Living and Sur Lie are collaborating on a gluten-free dinner.

Friday – the first day of a week long 3-course menu at Union that features honey from the rooftop hives at the Press Hotel.

Friday-Sunday – The Common Ground Fair will be taking place.

September 21 – It’s the first day of the Novare Res Oktoberfest celebration.

September 22-29 – Maine Lobster Week is taking place.

September 25 – Space Gallery is screening the movie Holding Back the Tides.

September 26 – The Calamity Jayne neighborhood cookout is taking place at Ocotillo.

September 28 – The Maine Needham Festival is taking place in Wiscasset. The African Festival is taking place.

September 28/29 – The Pemaquid Oyster Festival is taking place in Boothbay Harbor.

September 30 – The Bitter Ball Negroni Contest is taking place at Via Vecchia.

October 3 – Wayside Food Programs is holding their annual fundraising event Inside Wayside.

October 5 – Oxbow is holding their annual Good from the Woods event in Newcastle.

October 6 – Dandelion Spring Farm in Bowdoinham is hold their annual Fermentation Fair.

October 10 – Apres is holding their annual Apple Tasting.

October 13 – The 16th Annual Open Creamery Day is taking place.

October 19 – McDougal Orchards in Springvale is holding their 5th Annual Apple Tasting.

October 20 – Great Maine Apple Day is taking place in Unity.

October 23 – Mrs. Gee Free Living and Sur Lie are collaborating on a gluten-free dinner.

October 24-26 – Harvest on the Harbor is taking place.

October 29 – The annual HospitalityMaine summit is taking place at Sugarloaf.

Planning a wedding, holding a business event, or hosting visitors from away? Our printed guides are a great resource to help your guests explore the Maine restaurant scene.
25-packs of the Portland and Midcoast pocket guides are now available on our online store.

Maine Pears & Review of Oun Lido’s

| Posted in Reviews, Farming

Yesterday’s Maine Sunday Telegram included a 4 star review of Oun Lido’s,

With his menu, chef Kim does much the same, borrowing deeply personal food memories and transforming them into sophisticated, yet comforting Cambodian and Cambodian-Chinese dishes. Among the most exciting plates are neorm, a crunchy, herby noodle salad with a bonus egg roll; kathew cha, an umami-bathed, stir-fried noodle dish; and loc lac, a complete meal of rice, sunny-side-up egg, shaved sirloin strips and a chromatic salad of cucumber and heirloom cherry tomatoes.

and a feature article about pears in Maine.

Maine has had a passionate coterie of apple “explorers” for several decades, Bunker foremost among them, who are intent on finding and preserving the state’s heirloom apple trees. Today, Maine’s heirloom pear trees – threatened by age, development, climate change and related pests and disease – are just beginning to get similar attention.

 

Cong Tu Bot on Restaurant Prices

| Posted in General News

Vien Dobui, chef and co-owner of Công Tử Bột, is one of the restaurateurs interviewed by Eater for an article on “Why Restaurants Are So Expensive Now.” Dobui’s commentary reads in part,

“I’m going to be completely transparent; we filed for bankruptcy in December 2023. We might break even this year. Most of our costs go to labor; our restaurant is actually unionized, so our labor percentage is almost unsustainably high, around 50 percent. And that’s by design. When I am pricing our food, I generally take the highest-cost ingredients, and multiply that by a factor of three and a half to four and a half, and that usually captures my labor costs.

Maine Food & Dining News: Limerick, Pittsfield, Westbrook, Scarborough, Bangor

| Posted in Maine

New food and dining developments are taking place all across Maine. Here are some recent updates to keep you in the know:

  • Matt Haskell, the owner of Blaze Brewing Company, has bought and relaunched Doles Orchard (website, facebook, instagram) in Limerick. Visitors to the orchard can pick their own apples and grab lunch from the Blaze mobile wood-fired kitchen The menu includes pizza, wings, barbecue sandwiches. Shown above is the smoked brisket sandwich. See the Doles Orchard instagram account for details on which apple varieties are ready to pick.
  • The results from the 3rd Annual Maine Cheese Competition are out. Thirteen Maine cheesemakers took home awards across all nine categories. The program took place last week at the Maine Cheese Guild’s annual festival in Pittsfield.
  • Casa Novello is in the process of building an addition to their Westbrook restaurant. The new room is set to house an additional dining room that can seat 30.
  • The relaunch of Anjon’s Ristorante in Scarborough is scheduled for next week. The restaurant had been in business for more than 60 years when it closed in 2019.
  • The Bangor Daily News reports that the Legacy Sandwich Shop will be closing at the end of this month after 14 years in business.
  • See our Maine Heirloom Apple Guide and Guide to Maine Cider to research you weekend road-trips this fall.

For a guide to eating and drinking across our state see the Maine Food Map—a growing list of coffee shops, bars, restaurants, bakeries, cafes, and other food and dining businesses in all of Maine’s 16 counties.