This Week’s Events: Sierra Nevada Beer Camp, Flea Bites, Eat Street

| Posted in Events

Wednesday — Black Tie is holding a farm dinner in New Gloucester, and the Monument Square Farmers Market is taking place.

Thursday — Mainely Burgers will be featured on an episode of the Food TV Network show Eat Street, Sebago is holding a Beer Camp Block Party, and there will be a wine and cheese tasting at the Public Market House.

Friday — the Sierra Nevada Beer Camp is taking place at Thompson’s Point, a group of food trucks will be at the Flea For All for Flea Bites, and the West End Deli is holding a wine tasting.

Saturday — there will be a wine tasting at LeRoux Kitchen, and the Deering Oaks Farmers Market is taking place.

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.

5 Stars for Vinland

| Posted in Reviews

Vinland has received 5 stars from today’s review in the Maine Sunday Telegram.

Vinland takes farm-to-table another step to use only ingredients grown or produced in Maine. Chef David Levi pulls it off with creativity and inspired dishes, but no lack of flavor. He uses yogurt whey in place of citrus, lardo and ghee instead of olive oil, and honey and maple syrup for sugar, in a small-plates menu that is entirely gluten free. All of the dishes are flavorful and familiar, from lobster and halibut to pork, steak, chicken and pork belly. The location is bright and welcoming, and the clientele is healthy and enthusiastic. Try creative cocktails and griddled cornbread and beet chips at the bar, or call ahead for an eight-course tasting menu orchestrated by Levi for $90, or five courses for $60. And don’t forget to try the homemade ice cream.

Review of Street & Co.

| Posted in Reviews

Diningsense has reviewed Street & Co.

As long as the appetizers and main dishes continue to operate in different directions, it will be hard to see how much Street is capable of accomplishing. I think it tries to offer simple, rustic cuisine (these descriptors are referenced on the website, at least) and I respect this, but simplicity doesn’t preclude creativity and this is where the main plates disappointed. After a two-year hiatus, I’m glad to have returned to Street and Company, but the apparent struggle to construct a coherent plate of fish makes me wonder whether their skills have grown coarser than before.

MOFGA Receices $1M Grant

| Posted in Farming

The Partridge Foundation has made a $1 million grant to the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association. The grant comes with an additional $1 million challenge provided MOFGA can raise an equal amount.

According to a report from the Press Herald,

The Partridge Foundation awarded the money to “seed MOFGA’s work in encouraging a new generation of organic farmers,” according to a written statement from the foundation.

The statement adds that the grant reflects foundation founder Polly Guth’s “deep interest in healthful food and farming in her native New England.” Guth is a native of Manchester, New Hampshire, and her foundation has made grants to Maine organizations before, including several smaller grants to MOFGA.

Interview with Luke Davidson, Distiller

| Posted in People

The Press Herald has published an interview with Luke Davidson from Maine Craft Distilling.

Q. What are some other unique spirits you make?
A. We have two other great ones – one we’re calling “Sea Smoke,” an aged whiskey, and we’re taking sugar kelp and Maine-grown peat and heating it to smoke some of the grains. Then we distill the barley and make a nice, richly profiled whiskey. The other up-our-sleeve one is taking traditional-styled gin and putting it in a barrel and making it age. It’s sort of a hybrid of whiskey and gin.

Maine’s Best Lobster Roll

| Posted in Reviews

deaug2014For the 60th anniversary issue, Down East magazine intensively searched the state for the best lobster roll, trying “scores of lobster rolls served up by food trucks, lobster shacks, and restaurants from Eastport to Kittery.”

Greets Eats, a food truck on Vinalhaven, scored the top spot. Local Portland-area favorites Eventide and Bite into Maine were among the 4 runners-up.

The article includes the online ad-on video of chef Sam Hayward at Fore Street demonstrating how he prepares a lobster roll.

 

WSJ: Food Financials at the Westin

| Posted in General News

An article in the Wall Street Journal about the Westin Harborview Hotel in Portland reports that strong food/drink sales at the Top of the East and other part of the hotel for a big role in its financial success.

New Castle President Gerry Chase is projecting revenue this year from the bar at $1.2 million, which would be more than double what it was before the renovation. April brought sales of $130,000, compared with previous years when that month had revenue of $15,000 or less, he says.

The bar’s success is one reason the hotel’s food-and-beverage revenue accounts for nearly half the property’s overall revenue, Mr. Chase says.