Best Banh Mi in America

| Posted in Reviews

The Infatuation has included Banh Appetit in their list of the 13 Best Banh Mi Across America.

Banh Appetit is a straightforward and reliable Vietnamese takeout spot in Portland, Maine. But leaving it at that would be like saying Costco’s just a grocery store. The excellent lemongrass beef bánh mì is the type of meal that can turn an awful day around. Stop by on Saturday evenings to check out the Mama Le menu, where you can get a bunch of different vegetarian and vegan dishes like the banh mi chay—a sandwich stuffed with rice powder, glass noodles, sweet chili, and vegan mayo—freshly prepared by the owners’ actual mama.

Golden Lotus Has Closed

| Posted in Closings

Golden Lotus (website, facebook, instagram) has closed. A sign in the window at 511 Congress Street reads “Closed for Good”.  The owners have posted a brief statement on facebook,

Thank you all so much for the last ten years. We truly appreciate all of the love and support you have given us. We look forward to some much needed rest with family and friends. Hopefully, you are able to find another restaurant you like (almost) as much as Golden Lotus!

Upcoming Food & Dining Events

| Posted in Events

Tuesday – Le Mu Eats in Bethel is hosting a Mexican food pop-up with chef Alan Arciga.

Thursday – Mrs. Gee Free Living and Sur Lie are collaborating on a gluten-free dinner.

Friday – the first day of a week long 3-course menu at Union that features honey from the rooftop hives at the Press Hotel.

Friday-Sunday – The Common Ground Fair will be taking place.

September 21 – It’s the first day of the Novare Res Oktoberfest celebration.

September 22-29 – Maine Lobster Week is taking place.

September 25 – Space Gallery is screening the movie Holding Back the Tides.

September 26 – The Calamity Jayne neighborhood cookout is taking place at Ocotillo.

September 28 – The Maine Needham Festival is taking place in Wiscasset. The African Festival is taking place.

September 28/29 – The Pemaquid Oyster Festival is taking place in Boothbay Harbor.

September 30 – The Bitter Ball Negroni Contest is taking place at Via Vecchia.

October 3 – Wayside Food Programs is holding their annual fundraising event Inside Wayside.

October 5 – Oxbow is holding their annual Good from the Woods event in Newcastle.

October 6 – Dandelion Spring Farm in Bowdoinham is hold their annual Fermentation Fair.

October 10 – Apres is holding their annual Apple Tasting.

October 13 – The 16th Annual Open Creamery Day is taking place.

October 19 – McDougal Orchards in Springvale is holding their 5th Annual Apple Tasting.

October 20 – Great Maine Apple Day is taking place in Unity.

October 23 – Mrs. Gee Free Living and Sur Lie are collaborating on a gluten-free dinner.

October 24-26 – Harvest on the Harbor is taking place.

October 29 – The annual HospitalityMaine summit is taking place at Sugarloaf.

Planning a wedding, holding a business event, or hosting visitors from away? Our printed guides are a great resource to help your guests explore the Maine restaurant scene.
25-packs of the Portland and Midcoast pocket guides are now available on our online store.

Maine Pears & Review of Oun Lido’s

| Posted in Reviews, Farming

Yesterday’s Maine Sunday Telegram included a 4 star review of Oun Lido’s,

With his menu, chef Kim does much the same, borrowing deeply personal food memories and transforming them into sophisticated, yet comforting Cambodian and Cambodian-Chinese dishes. Among the most exciting plates are neorm, a crunchy, herby noodle salad with a bonus egg roll; kathew cha, an umami-bathed, stir-fried noodle dish; and loc lac, a complete meal of rice, sunny-side-up egg, shaved sirloin strips and a chromatic salad of cucumber and heirloom cherry tomatoes.

and a feature article about pears in Maine.

Maine has had a passionate coterie of apple “explorers” for several decades, Bunker foremost among them, who are intent on finding and preserving the state’s heirloom apple trees. Today, Maine’s heirloom pear trees – threatened by age, development, climate change and related pests and disease – are just beginning to get similar attention.

 

Cong Tu Bot on Restaurant Prices

| Posted in General News

Vien Dobui, chef and co-owner of Công Tử Bột, is one of the restaurateurs interviewed by Eater for an article on “Why Restaurants Are So Expensive Now.” Dobui’s commentary reads in part,

“I’m going to be completely transparent; we filed for bankruptcy in December 2023. We might break even this year. Most of our costs go to labor; our restaurant is actually unionized, so our labor percentage is almost unsustainably high, around 50 percent. And that’s by design. When I am pricing our food, I generally take the highest-cost ingredients, and multiply that by a factor of three and a half to four and a half, and that usually captures my labor costs.

Maine Food & Dining News: Limerick, Pittsfield, Westbrook, Scarborough, Bangor

| Posted in Maine

New food and dining developments are taking place all across Maine. Here are some recent updates to keep you in the know:

  • Matt Haskell, the owner of Blaze Brewing Company, has bought and relaunched Doles Orchard (website, facebook, instagram) in Limerick. Visitors to the orchard can pick their own apples and grab lunch from the Blaze mobile wood-fired kitchen The menu includes pizza, wings, barbecue sandwiches. Shown above is the smoked brisket sandwich. See the Doles Orchard instagram account for details on which apple varieties are ready to pick.
  • The results from the 3rd Annual Maine Cheese Competition are out. Thirteen Maine cheesemakers took home awards across all nine categories. The program took place last week at the Maine Cheese Guild’s annual festival in Pittsfield.
  • Casa Novello is in the process of building an addition to their Westbrook restaurant. The new room is set to house an additional dining room that can seat 30.
  • The relaunch of Anjon’s Ristorante in Scarborough is scheduled for next week. The restaurant had been in business for more than 60 years when it closed in 2019.
  • The Bangor Daily News reports that the Legacy Sandwich Shop will be closing at the end of this month after 14 years in business.
  • See our Maine Heirloom Apple Guide and Guide to Maine Cider to research you weekend road-trips this fall.

For a guide to eating and drinking across our state see the Maine Food Map—a growing list of coffee shops, bars, restaurants, bakeries, cafes, and other food and dining businesses in all of Maine’s 16 counties.

Looking Back at September 2009, 2014, and 2019

| Posted in History

The Portland Food Map archive  provides a chronicle of the past 17 years of the Portland restaurant scene. While a lot of the reporting here is about what’s happening now and coming next, we thought it would be fun to take a look back each month at what the hot topics were from 5, 10 and 15 years ago.

Here’s are highlights from September 2009, 2014 and 2019:

  • Geo’s Patisserie on Forest Ave closed in 2009, as did Barava on Congress St.
  • Julia Moskin penned an article for the New York Times about the Portland food scene, “In the last decade, Portland has undergone a controlled fermentation for culinary ideas combining young chefs in a hard climate with few rules, no European tradition to answer to, and relatively low economic pressure and has become one of the best places to eat in the Northeast.”
  • A company called Ocean Approved received a lease to farm kelp in Casco Bay.
  • As a result of the NYT article Rabelais started getting calls for reservations from people who had mistaken the bookstore for a restaurant.
  • Gourmet magazine included Fore Street in a national list of 125 restaurants “you can trust to provide exceptional food and a memorable experience every single time”.
  • Peace Food Market opened for business.
  • The popular Congress Street bar The White Heart closed in 2014. The space eventually would become the home of Nosh.
  • Arcadia opened for business at their original location on Preble Street, Dean’s Sweets on Fore Street and Golden Lotus opened, Sur Lie opened on Free Street, and so did Huong’s Vietnamese Restaurant on Saint John Street. The email newsletter Eat Drink Lucky launched in 2014.
  • The owners of Piccolo celebrated the first anniversary of the restaurant with a 20-course feast.
  • The Pepperclub closed in September 2014 and Sangillo’s filed an appeal of in the denial of their liquor license renewal.
  • Nathaniel Meiklejohn opened his Arts District cocktail bar The Jewel Box.
  • Sticky Sweet opened their plant-based ice cream shop on Cumberland Ave in 2019.
  • Word broke that Maria’s Ristorante was planning move into the Espo’s space at 1335 Congress Street.
  • Mast Landing expanded into a 20,000 square foot space in Westbrook.
  • Word broke that Randy and Ally Forrester were moving to Portland to open what would become Radici.
  • JP’s Bistro owner John Paul Gagnon made the decision to move his restaurant from Woodford Street in Portland to Falmouth.

Ohno Cafe Closing

| Posted in Closings

The owners of Ohno have announced plans to close their West End cafe “just before Thanksgiving.”

As many of you know, this year is Ohno’s 20th anniversary. Today we must announce it will be the last. Years of caring for ill and aging parents while trying to cobble together a staff in the post-pandemic world have left us tapped out. For our own well-being and our family’s, we plan to close just before Thanksgiving.

They’re seeking someone who might want to take the business over: “If any of you love the Ohno as much as we do and think you’d like to take it on, we are open to proposals.”

Upcoming Food & Dining Events

| Posted in Events

Tuesday – It’s the opening day of Maine’s Untold Vegetarian History at the Maine Historical Society museum. The exhibit is curated by Avery Yale Kamila the Vegan Kitchen columnist for the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram and vegetarian history researcher John Babin. Old Port Wine Merchants will be holding a Bartlett Wine tasting.

Friday – Edible Communities is holding their Waves of Change event in Portland.

Saturday – Maine PoutineFest is taking place on Thompson’s Point.

Sunday – Maine Apple Sunday is taking place at orchards across the state.

September 17 – Le Mu Eats in Bethel is hosting a Mexican food pop-up with chef Alan Arciga.

September 19 – Mrs. Gee Free Living and Sur Lie are collaborating on a gluten-free dinner.

September 20 – the first day of a week long 3-course menu at Union that features honey from the rooftop hives at the Press Hotel.

September 20-22 – The Common Ground Fair will be taking place.

September 22-29 – Maine Lobster Week is taking place.

September 26 – The Calamity Jayne neighborhood cookout is taking place at Ocotillo.

September 28 – The Maine Needham Festival is taking place in Wiscasset. The African Festival is taking place.

October 3 – Wayside Food Programs is holding their annual fundraising event Inside Wayside.

October 10 – Apres is holding their annual Apple Tasting.

October 13 – The 16th Annual Open Creamery Day is taking place.

October 24 – Great Maine Apple Day is taking place in Unity.

October 23 – Mrs. Gee Free Living and Sur Lie are collaborating on a gluten-free dinner.

October 24-26 – Harvest on the Harbor is taking place.

Planning a wedding, holding a business event, or hosting visitors from away? Our printed guides are a great resource to help your guests explore the Maine restaurant scene.
25-packs of the Portland and Midcoast pocket guides are now available on our online store.

Carey Brothers and Review of Linden+Front

| Posted in Reviews, People

Today’s paper includes a feature about Ryan and Richard Carey, the twin brothers who operate two of the city’s barbecue restaurants,

If you learned that the owner of one of Portland’s most acclaimed barbecue joints has a fraternal twin brother who is the general manager at another highly respected barbecue restaurant in the city, you might assume their relationship would be a little fraught with competitive tension.

The paper also includes a review of Linden + Front, a new restaurant that opened in Bath in February.

Bath’s newest neighborhood restaurant, Linden + Front, bills itself as “a modern table,” a slogan that signals its eclecticism. But really, this new venture by restaurateurs Khristine and Zac Leeman is a bistro through and through, with a menu that seems to revel in classics that are only slightly updated. And that’s not a bad thing.