The Bangor Daily News has published an article about Otto Pizza.
“We started very barebones with all used equipment,” said Keon, who leased a 300-square foot space at the corner of Congress and Forest streets for their first slice shop. “It was very minimal.”
Four years later OTTO Pizza has 215 employees working in five thriving shops in Portland and Boston. Two more stores will open by summer’s end in South Portland and Lynnfield, Mass., and in the next few weeks OTTO will hire 50 more people.
The regular crew over at Chowhound did a great job of assembling a set of recommendations for a family with young children that will be visiting Portland for a week. It’s a useful reference for anyone who has friends with a young family visiting this summer.
The 207 Foodie has published a review of Brea Lu.
Home is the feeling you’ll get when you step into Brea Lu, and full to the brim filled with an amazing breakfast (or lunch) is how you’ll leave Brea Lu. I have nothing but praise for this Portland classic.
Tuesday — Sonny’s, in conjunction with GMRI’s Out of the Blue initiative, is holding a 4-course wine dinner featuring Dogfish.
Wednesday — the Monument Square Farmers Market is taking place.
Thursday — Josh Potocki from 158 Pickett Street Cafe will be the guest chef at this week’s Twilight Dinner at Turkey Hill Farm, and The Great Lost Bear will be showcasing beer from In’finiti.
Friday — Wicked Good Street Kitchen, Portside Picnic, Mainely Burgers, el Corozan, Bite into Maine, and Pretty Awesome Street Food will be serving at Flea Bites in Bayside, and there will be a wine tasting at the West End Deli.
Saturday — there will be wine tasting at LeRoux Kitchen and Browne Trading, and the Deering Oaks Farmers Market is taking place.
Sunday — Rosemont is holding an event featuring the food and wine of North Lebanon.
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.
The Maine Sunday Telegram has published a review of Susan’s Fish and Chips.
Susan’s Fish-n-Chips is a local treasure on outer Forest Avenue. The lack of ambience becomes a sort of meta/alt-ambience. Go to Susan’s for the fried fresh seafood. The staff is friendly and welcoming, portions are great, and the price is right.
In the latest entry from Immigrant Kitchens, Lindsay Sterling learns how to make Pho from Hieu Nguyen (read the story, get the recipe and see the photos).
My friend’s husband, Hieu Nguyen, grew up in Dalat, Vietnam, until he was five. He remembers Vietnam’s gorgeous rolling hills, beaches, rainforests, and lakes as a cross between Vermont and Costa Rica. He hasn’t been back since he left in 1975, the day before Saigon fell. He hopes one day to visit with his wife and kids. In the mean time, he lights incense and cooks a Vietnamese chicken noodle soup, called pho, combining his grandmother and mother’s methods with his own, discovered after years of cooking it every Sunday for his family.
Carson Lynch, owner of the Gorham Grind, is working on a project to launch a food truck. The new truck will be called Anywhere Coffee Bar (twitter) is slated to launch in early September. Lynch plans on operating year-round. He’s in the process of leasing a parking space along “a main commuter route in Portland” during the week and hopes to also book catering jobs and event appearances on the weekend.
Eat Maine has published an article about Allagash Brewing.
For beer nerds, an additional perk of the expansion is that it frees up the old brew house to focus on producing Allagash’s more experimental beers, like the Coolship brews, which are made with wild yeast, or Fluxus, part of the Tribute Series Beers, which is made according to a different recipe each year. These products, along with the limited edition beers, are rarely found on liquor store shelves…
Tandem Coffee will be operating a coffee pop-up this morning at Standard Baking. From 10-1 they’ll be “serving pour over, iced Adado and our world famous Malt Iced Coffee”.
The Bangor Daily News has published an interview with Massa Miyake and Will Garfield about Miyake Diner which is under construction in the original Miyake location on Spring Street.
It will also have a very different type of menu. It will be an izakaya-style restaurant, which in Japanese translates to something like a gastro-pub, according to Garfield.
In Japan, izakaya joints are places people go after work to have some drinks — mostly sake — and small plates of food. There won’t be any sushi on the menu, nor gyoza, ramen or pork buns.
Miyake, who once worked in a macrobiotic kitchen in New York City, said the menu will be “small plates, largely vegetable focused.”