Monday — Maine Restaurant Week starts today and to kick it off right the Bartenders Bash cocktail competition is taking place at the Portland Museum of Art. Also on Monday, Stephen Lanzalotta is teaching a Piatto per Tutti cooking class.

Wednesday — Black Tie Bistro is holding a cooking class.

Friday — Maine Restaurant Week’s Breakfast Cook-off is taking place, West End Deli is holding a wine tasting, and Rabelais is having an opening for an exhibit of food industry mug shots (1899-1954).

Saturday — Wolf Neck Farm is holding a workshop on advanced canning techniques, the indoor Winter Farmers’ Market is taking place, there’s a wine tasting at Leroux Kitchen and Port Clyde Fresh Catch is dropping off shares of their Maine shrimp CSF.

Sunday — Bar Lola’s Guy Hernandez is the featured chef at the Food Film Series screening of the movie Delicatessen.

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 annual CSA Fair is taking place today at locations across the state. The fair gives you a chance to meet farmers and compare various CSA options to find the one that’s right for you.
The Portland CSA Fair is taking place 1-4 pm, at Woodfords Church, 202 Woodford St.

The start of Maine Restaurant Week just a couple days and news coverage continues to be strong. Today there were a pair of articles in the Portland Daily Sun on the Bartenders Bash cocktail competition, and about the origins of MRW,

…the event is owned and operated by a private public relations company with deep connections into the high-profile eateries that made the promotion almost instantly credible when it launched last year.

and a piece in the Examiner which sets a list of 10 recommendations in verse. Here’s the first of 2 stanzas,

Bar Lola, Blue Spoon, or Brian Boru
That’s no Bull Feeney, we’re telling you true
Three courses of food – a bargain at that…
Five Fifty Five or the oddly named, Duckfat.

Appetite Portland has published a report on Thursday night’s Unibroue tasting at Novare Res.

Edition 2005, mahogany colored with a rich head of foam, was my favorite of the anniversaries. Paired with a Tuscan ham and blue cheese, the beer’s dark spice and cinnamon balanced the bite of the blue. Adam preferred the Unibroue 17, an intensely malty dark ale with mocha accents. We both loved the Seigreuriale — as did everyone else in the room. Its subtle notes of citrus and apricot tamed the salty salami and pungent New Hampshire landaff.

Barista Brittany Feltovic was victor at Thursday night’s latte art competition at Bard Coffee. 14 amateur and professional baristas participated in the event. This month’s competition was a benefit for Haitian relief efforts. A rematch is scheduled for next month on March 25th.