This Week’s Events: Latte Art Competition, Incredible Breakfast Cook-off, Maine Restaurant Week, MOFGA Event

| Posted in Events

Wednesday — The Merry Table is serving a 5-course French wine dinner.

Thursday — Bard is hosting the monthly latte art barista competition, Grace is restarting their wine education program, there will be a mead and cheese tasting at the Public Market House, and the Great Lost Bear will be featuring beers from Victory Brewing.

Friday — the Incredible Breakfast Cook-off is taking place, Wine Wise is teaching a class on Port, there will be wine tastings at the West End Deli and Rosemont, and a Gritty’s tap takeover at Taco Escobarr. It’s the first day of Maine Restaurant Week and concurrently Grace is raising money to fight hunger in Maine by donating $1 for every 3-course $30 meal ordered March 1-8.

Saturday — there will be wine tastings at Browne Trading and LeRoux Kitchen, and the Winter Farmers Market is taking place.

Sunday — MOFGA’s Meet Your Farmers and Fishermen event is taking place at Woodfoord Church, and Two Fat Cats is teaching a baking class.

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.

Review of J’s Oyster Bar

| Posted in Reviews

The Maine Sunday Telegram has published a review of J’s Oyster Bar.

Remember that J’s is a joint. Entrees are ample and tasty, and diners won’t leave hungry, but it’s not fine dining. It’s a sleeves rolled up, slurp some oysters with basic horseradish and shoot the (expletive deleted) over a few beers locale. Placemats are paper, and house rules are clearly stated on cards at each table.

And that’s part of J’s charm.

Veranda Asian Market

| Posted in Profiles

The Bangor Daily News has posted a video tour of Veranda Asian Market.

And you can get stuff that’s definitely not in your average local grocery store, like Vietnamese mints, Chinese celery, Thai basil, Thai okra and an array of bok choy and cabbage-like greens. There’s fish, like blue marlin, spanish mackerel and giant featherback, found only in Southeast Asia. There’s quail eggs, duck eggs and black chicken, which is indeed a chicken that’s completely black, right down to its bones…

Review of Caiola’s

| Posted in Reviews

The Golden Dish has published a review of Caiola’s.

Commandeering the kitchen is co-proprietor and Chef Abby Harmon who makes this all happen.  Her kitchen is like a laboratory of invention—the whole kit and caboodle of culinary cause and effect that isn’t so easily classified. But attempting to I’d have to resort to words like Mediterranean-influenced with a dash of Downeast home cooking and a serious dose of comfort food savoir faire.

Maine Magazine: The Food Issue

| Posted in Reviews, People, Fisheries

mainemag201303The annual Food Issue of Maine magazine arrived in subscriber’s mailboxes yesterday. Inside you’ll find:

Fish Frys and Groundfishing

| Posted in Reviews, Fisheries

Taking his cue from this week’s feature article on New England groundfishing, Portland Phoenix restaurant critic Brian Duff has sampled fish dishes at Three Buoys, Taqueria Tequila, Old Port Sea Grill and Taco Escobarr.

At Taco Escobarr they give seasoned pieces of firm pollock a very light fry. A white sauce adds just a touch of tang, some slaw lends a bit of sour, and thin slices of radish give some bitterness. At three for $10 they run a bit more money, but you get them on house-made corn tortillas — which have good flavor but could use a touch more sear on the grill.

MRW Overview & The Beer Babe

| Posted in Events, Beer

Today’s Press Herald includes an overview of Maine Restaurant Week. The food event will be taking place March 1-10.

This is the fifth year of Maine Restaurant Week, and while there are some interesting changes in store, its basic structure will stay the same. The breakfast cook-off and the other major event of the week, a cocktail-and-dessert competition called the Signature Event, are extremely popular and usually sell out. These parties haven’t changed much because the basic formats have not yet gotten (pardon the expression) stale.

Also worth noting is a new blog from the Press Herald. The Beer Babe is written by Carla Companion. Her most recent post is a review of the beer list at Pai Men Miyake.

I chose a Hitachino Nest Commemorative Ale “Zymatore”, which is relatively rare even at Belgian beer bars. A third party – with agreements with many famous brewers – takes small batches of amazing beer, and then ages it in barrels – in this case Zinfandel barrels, and each release is unique and complex…

Service and Food Up, Tips Down

| Posted in People

Portland Daily Sun columnist Natalie Ladd has written about a night when everything went well . . . except the tips.

So why were the tip so overwhelmingly bad?

It stands to reason there should be a direct correlation between customer satisfaction with the big three: Food, Atmosphere and Service (FAT) and a handsome gratuity. Typically that’s how it plays out, but that night, I just couldn’t figure what was going awry. There was the paper napkin upon which somebody wrote, “Fantastic Service! We had a great time,” and left a little over ten percent of their check.

2013 James Beard Foundation Semi-Finalists

| Posted in General News

The semi-final list of nominees for this year’s James Beard Awards were released today. Four Maine chefs and restaurants made the list:

Final nominees will be announced on Monday March 18 and the awards ceremony takes place May 3 & 6 in New York City.

For reference, here are the Maine semi-finalist from 2012, 2011 and 2010.