This Week’s Events: Twilight Dinner, Italian Bazaar, Tomato Dinner, The Well Wine Dinner

Wednesday — wine tastings are scheduled to take place at RSVP and Rosemont on Brighton, and the Monument Square Farmers Market is taking place.

Thursday — staff from Rosemont are the guest chefs at the next Cultivating Community Twilight Dinner, the Great Lost Bear is featuring beer from Tuckerman Brewing at this week’s brewery showcase, and the South Portland Farmers Market is taking place in the afternoon.

Saturday — it’s the opening day of 86th Annual St Peter’s Italian Bazaar, and the Deering Oaks Farmers Market is taking place.

Sunday — Petite Jacqueline is offering a 4-course tomato tasting menu (corn and tomato soup, cherry tomato risotto, fluke with pickled tomatoes, olive oil cake with tomato sorbet and macerated tomatoes).  The Well and Devenish Wines are hosting a 4-course dinner at Jordan’s Farm in Cape Elizabeth featuring local ingredients and wines from Dieberg Vineyard. It’s the last day of the St Peter’s Italian Bazaar.

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.

Reviews of Saigon and Thirsty Pig

Vin et Grub has published a review of Saigon,

For my entree I ordered the Vermicelli with egg-rolls and grilled prawns.  The thai basil, fresh mint, shredded lettuce, bean sprouts, daikon radish, and carrots, mixed with the fish sauce, and sriracha was so good.  I love vermicelli anyway, but the combo of hot and cold, both in taste and temperature was perfect.  Such a refreshing bite of food, not to mention, relatively healthy too!

and Broke 207 has published a review of The Thirsty Pig.

i stopped in for lunch a few weeks ago, and you will see from this photo, that i devoured my hot dog so fast that i forgot to take a picture of it in full sauerkrauted glory. it’s not so much that my veggie dog was any more wonderful than any other dog previously available to me, but it was nicely grilled on a perfectly toasted bun with a side of B&M vegetarian beans…

Review of Miyake

The Golden Dish has published a review of the new Miyake.

A worldly tour of flavors, the meal started off with an amuse of quail eggs, braised daikon and arugula, a thoroughly elegant and exquisite beginning. Lobster sashimi followed, which was a stunningly crafted dish complemented with salmon toro — that part of the belly that’s so buttery tasting and fresh — and yellow tail (hamachi).

Review of Ruski’s, Fool’s Gold, Red Tide

Ruski’s received 4 stars from the Eat & Run review in today’s Press Herald.

The other marvelous thing about Ruski’s is the brunch menu, which is available all day. From eggs and hash to waffles and omelets, they’ve got the bases covered. With a friendly staff, the Red Sox game on mute and some good old-fashioned staples, I dare say I may soon become a Ruski’s regular.

Today’s paper also includes an article about the low levels of red tide in Maine this year,

Maine and the rest of New England have had a second straight year of mild red tide outbreaks, bringing relief to the clamming industry after two consecutive years of widespread clam flat closures because of red tide.

and the latest installment of the What Ales You column.

Fool’s Gold is Sebago’s version of a California common ale, the most common of which is Anchor Steam Beer out of San Francisco. Although it’s made with lager yeast, it’s fermented at room temperature instead of the cooler temperatures usually used for a lager.

Portland Trails Recipe Contest & the Center for African Heritage

The Food & Dining section in today’s Press Herald includes a report on the winner of the Portland Trails recipe contest,

As a mother of two, a grandmother of four and a former sixth-grade teacher, Vesta Rand knows how to get kids excited about food. As an avid walker, she also knows what it takes to create portable eats.

So it’s hardly a surprise that her entry for Portland Trails’ first Trail Gourmet contest took top honors.

and an article about the gardening program at the Center for African Heritage in Falmouth,

Boulis Kodi treads lightly through a thriving garden patch, showing off a summer’s worth of hard work by Nuba Mountain refugees from Sudan.

“This is the sweet corn, and this is the tomatoes over here,” said Kodi, who is the farm manager for the Center for African Heritage garden project at Tidewater Farm, just down the road from the University of Maine Regional Learning Center.

 

Comparative Cupcake Tasting II

Back last November Appetite Portland and The Blueberry Files joined Edible Obsessions for a comparative tasting of cupcakes from 7 local bakeries, but that was just a down payment on a complete survey of Portland area cupcake culture. Recently the original three bloggers plus Maine Foodie Finds, Vrai-lean-uh and From Away convened for the second and final round:

Appetite Portland

Overall: While I enjoyed a frosting here and a cake consistency there, I left the event rather saddened. Perhaps it was the humidity. Perhaps the nostalgia had worn off after the first throwdown last November. Or, perhaps I simply expected too much. Whatever the cause, a scan through my notes revealed the phrases “simply flavorless,” “pasty, plastic film,” and “like a stale devil dog.” read the full article

Edible Obsessions

While the food media has seemingly turned its back on cupcakes and declared them ‘over,’ this experiment has definitely shown me (or, perhaps, just reminded) that the cupcake is a classic and too deeply imbedded in our food memory hard wiring to be at the mercy of trends. And we are in the company of some damn skilled bakers who are eager to prove just that. read the full article

From Away

The European Bakery is an Old World type tea room with thick carpeting and pirouetting cakes on display. Their carrot cupcakes were so much better than I expected, with gooey cake studded with walnuts and a not too sharp cream cheese frosting. With so many cutesy, etsy, DIY-ish, delivered by a dirty hipster on a bicycle-type places running rampant these days – in a good way – I was surely surprised by how much I enjoyed these, from a plain old bakery manned by teenagers (teened by managers?!) on RT. 1 in Falmouth. My favorite. read the full article

The Blueberry Files

Another of my favories was the chocolate with chocolate ganache from Sugar Hill Bakery. I’m not a huge chocolate dessert fan, and this one really wowed me. It was a light chocolate ganache, not a thick, heavy fondant-like layer. read the full article

Vrai-lean-uh

In every person’s life, there are events that cause us to re-evaluate how we think of ourselves. I never imagined I would be the kind of person who would be all, “Oh woe is me, there are just too many cupcakes. I cannot eat another bite. This is terribly sugary bla bla bla.” read the full article

The post from Maine Foodie Findshas been delayed. I’ll add it to this summary as soon as it become available.