This Week’s Events: Cask Beer Night, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day

| Posted in Events

Tuesday — Full Moon Cask Beer Night at Sebago Brewing.

Friday — Cinque Terre will be holding their annual Feast of the Seven Fishes dinner, 4-8, $65 per person. A number of restaurants will be open on Christmas Eve: Andy’s Old Port Pub, El Rayo, Eve’s at the Garden, Five Fifty-Five, Gritty’s, Haraseeket Inn, Havana South, Holiday Inn by the Bay, Sebago Brewing, The Corner Room, The Farmer’s Table, The Front Room, The Grill Room and Vignola are all planning on being open Christmas Eve.

Saturday — A select few restaurants are planning to be open on Christmas Day, some with special holiday-themed menus: Binga’s Stadium, Gritty’s, Holiday Inn by the Bay, Old Port Tavern, Passage to India, Pom’s Thai Taste, Twenty Milk Street, the Eastland Park Hotel, Haraseeket Inn in Freeport, Sable Oaks Marriott in South Portland and the Sea Glass Restaurant in Cape Elizabeth.

New Year’s Eve — there are a lot of options for New Year’s Eve celebration: Bar Lola, BiBo’s, Bresca, Bull Feeney’s, Cinque Terre, David’s, DiMillo’s, El Rayo, Events on Broadway, Five Fifty-Five, Figa, Fore Street, Frog & Turtle, Grace, Havana South, Local 188, Old Port Sea Grill, Paciarino, Ribollita, Sonny’s, Sea Glass Restaurant, Season’s Grille, The Farmer’s Table, The Grill Room, The Salt Exchange, Vignola, Walter’s and Zackery’s.

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.

4 Star Review of Pai Men Miyake

| Posted in Reviews, History

Pai Men Miyake received 4 stars from the Taste & Tell review in the Maine Sunday Telegram.

Spicy miso ($11) from the ramen list gave perfect satisfaction. A half of a hard-boiled egg marinated in soy added some salty protein, and spicy sesame garlic paste revved up the miso broth to the savory thickness and intensity of a kind of Japanese meat glaze. Tons of skinny ramen noodles filled the bowl in which a couple of thick slices of pork belly provided bites of mild and tender meat.

Also in today’s paper are the teenage reminiscences of Congress Street in the 1950s by Martha Pillsbury. In her article she recalls a number of eateries from that era,

It is with sweet thoughts that I remember Soule’s Candy Kitchen and Haven’s Candy. Also, who remembers the State Theatre, the Pagoda Restaurant, State Street Drugs, Hays Drugstore, Your Host Restaurant, Strand Theater and the Puritan Restaurant?

The Puritan was where kids would stop on our way home from high school to eat french fries with gravy, have a Coke, and maybe smoke a first cigarette. West End kids got to know a lot of East End kids at the Puritan.

Under Construction: Gogi Asian Fusion

| Posted in Under Construction, History

Gogi, an Asian fusion restaurant, is under construction at 653 Congress Street. The draft menu (see page 83) includes items like kim chee fries and bulgogi beef tacos. When it opens it will bring a fourth Asian restaurant to Longfellow Square which is already home to Boda, Pai Men Miyake, and King of the Roll.

While that location has changed hands a number of times in the last few years, it has a long history. Influential restaurateur James Ledue ran Zephyr Grill and then Bella Cucina at that spot 1996-2002, for 24 years (1962-1986) it was Soule’s Candy Kitchen and in 1885 Augustus Schlotterbeck ran an apothecary at that address. Schlotterbeck co-founded the flavor extract business Schlotterbeck-Foss that still operates today from a John Calvin Stevens building on Preble Street.

Others!, Bar TV Etiquette and Hot Beverage Culture

| Posted in General News, Profiles

The Portland Daily Sun has published an article about the guiding philosophy of Others! in Monument Square,

“Our mission is in our name. We try to leverage money that comes through here to help as many as we can through Fair Trade coffee and tea and try to have a direct relationship with the growers and farmers,” said McCurtain.

a lesson in bar TV etiquette,

To which he said, “It’s just the way things are done…you ask your neighbor in a bar if you want to switch the channel. You must not go out very much.”

and an article about hot beverages, seasonal and otherwise.

Although we are a soup-eating people, we really don’t have a strong culture of hot beverages. Coffee, tea, hot chocolate and the occasional cider are typically the only hot beverages that you’ll find on menus in this country. Hot broths and savory brews are really a home affair, made to order when it’s bitter cold. The only local exception I’ve found is the buttery rich tea that is served at Korea House.