Secret Supper & Review of OystHers

| Posted in Reviews, Maine

The Maine Sunday Telegram includes a 4 star review of OystHers in Bath,

Lauren Crosby, the duo have put together an expertly chosen and overall remarkably affordable list of food-friendly beverages – everything from Armenian bubbles to nonalcoholic lavender-and-forsythia-infused soda ($10). Moreover, they’ve built a varied menu that comprises fat, overstuffed sliders (crab or lobster), salads, caviar and well-composed charcuterie boards. Sitting indoors is perfectly lovely, but if the weather is decent, head outdoors and snag a picnic table with views over Bath’s new riverwalk on the Kennebec River. 

and an article about the Secret Supper outdoor dinner series and the South Portland couple who manage the company.

Blue Lobster Tasting Room Opens Today

| Posted in Openings

Owners Chris Gamble and Jason Kroot are opening the new Blue Lobster Urban Winery (website, facebook,  instagram) tasting room today. The tasting room serves Blue Lobster wines and cider as well as beer, cocktails, mocktails and other non-alcoholic drinks. See below for their full menu.

Blue Lobster will initially be open Monday through Thursday 2 – 7 pm, Friday 2 – 8 pm, Saturday noon – 8 pm and Sunday noon – 6 pm.

BLUW was founded in 2017 and for the last 7 years has been located in the Rockingham Electric building just down the road at 219 Anderson Street. Both the production facility and the tasting room are now relocated to 200 Anderson Street.

Stonewall Reopens in Portland

| Posted in Openings

Stonewall Kitchen (website, facebook, instagram) opened their new retail shop today. It’s located at 215 Commercial Street and will be open Monday through Saturday 10 am – 7 pm and Sundays 10 am – 6 pm.

The former Stonewall Kitchen shop had been located on Middle Street across from Bard Coffee. They moved out in early 2022 to make way for the construction about to commence in the building.

Maine Food & Dining News: Lewiston, Wiscasset, Brunswick, Rockport

| 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:

  • Brewer/owner Jeremy Myers opened the new Aekier Brewing (website, facebook) tasting room in Wiscasset in early June. Aekeir is located at 111 Main Street. It’s open Wednesday/Thursday, 2 – 8 pm, and Friday/Saturday, 2 – 9 pm.
  • The new Walter’s Cafe (website, instagram) opened in Brunswick on May 12th. It’s located in the Tontine Mall and is open Tuesday through Saturday, 8 am – 3 pm. (photo above)
  • Mainebiz has published a report on the Lewiston restaurant community. “More than seven months after the mass shootings there, restaurants in Lewiston are still struggling to regain their customer base and make the dining scene as comfortable as possible for their patrons…”
  • The Pen Bay Pilot reports that a new food truck called Taco Joe’s recently launched in Rockport.
  • The new Midcoast edition of the Portland Food Map pocket guide launched earlier this week. You can pick-up a free copy of the guide at 8 different location in the Midcoast (and 2 in Portland). Packs of 25 copies of the Midcoast pocket guide are for sale online for anyone who may need them for an event or for their business.

NYT: 36 Hours in Portland

| Posted in Reviews

The New York Times has featured Portland in the latest of their 36 Hours travel articles.

From the fishing piers and wharves lined up like piano keys along Commercial Street to the ocean views and historic Queen Anne-style homes atop Munjoy Hill, Portland offers a lot for visitors to take in. And then there is the food. Maine’s largest city has long been nationally known as a top food destination, and just this year two Portland bakers won James Beard Awards…

The article highlights: Cong Tu Bot, Ugly Duckling, Il Leone, Luke’s Lobster, Bar Futo, Hot Suppa, Bite into Maine, Oxbow, Anoche, Rabelais, Onggi, Strata, Terlingua, Izakaya Minato, The Shop, and the recent Beard Award wins by Atsuko Fujimoto and Zu Bakery.

The NYT 36 Hours column has previously written about Portland in both 2010 and 2016.

The Send Brewing in Knightville

| Posted in Under Construction

The Send Brewing Company (instagram) is under construction in the Knightville neighborhood of South Portland. Cole Corbin (linkedin) is the new owner of the former Foulmouthed Brewing property in where he plans to launch a new brewery and restaurant.

The Send will serve a menu of Japanese comfort food and they’ll be brewing a variety of beer styles including some rice-based Japanese-style lagers to complement the food menu.

For 8 years Corbin worked at Maine Beer Company initially as a brewer and then as the director of brewing operations and the technical director for the Freeport-based brewery. He’s since been a prep cook at Nighthawk’s Kitchen and a bartender at Mast Landing. Earlier in his career Corbin was an aerospace engineer at NASA.

He is planning some light renovations to the dining room and hopes to open The Send this fall.

Foulmouthed Brewing closed at the end of April and at the time shared that the business had been sold to someone with “plenty of experience working within the industry here in Maine” planning to reopen the Ocean Street property as a brewery and restaurant under a new name.

Bar Publica in Bayside

| Posted in Openings

Bar Publica (website, facebook, instagram) opened for business on Saturday. The bar, kitchen and nightlife spot is in West Bayside located in between Wilson County Barbecue and Argenta Brewing on Hanover Street.

As you can see from the menu below, bar manager Dustin Williams and chef Jordi Harper are serving a pan-Latin American menu of food and cocktails. Shown above (bottom right) is a mezcal-based Grapefruit Negroni and the Salchipapa, a dish of roast potatoes topped with house-made chorizo, pork, queso fresco, blistered corn, garlic sauce and aji.

The bar and dining area can seat up to 65 people. There’s also rooftop and ground floor outdoor seating areas.

Bar Publica will be opening this week on Wednesday through Friday, 4 pm – 1 am, and they hope to expand the hours this weekend to be from noon to 1 am. Once they get underway, Bar Publica plans to be open seven days a week. Friday and Saturday night (10 pm onward) there will be a DJ and the dining room will transform into a dance floor (upper right photo). The kitchen closes at 10 pm each night.

Bar Publica was launched by Wilson County co-owner Spencer Brantley along with business partners David Kelley and Ciaran Sheenhan who are the founders of Ri Ra.

Midcoast Pocket Guide

| Posted in PFM, Maine

We’re excited to announce a new Midcoast Pocket Guide. The guide highlights a cross section of the restaurants, bakeries, breweries, coffee shops, cocktail bars, and cafes that make eating and drinking in the Midcoast so compelling.

32 cities and towns are represented from smaller communities like Bristol, Searsport and Owls Head along with the bigger cities and towns along the coast and some inland locations like Brooks, Union, and Whitefield. The list features both longtime mainstays of the Midcoast food scene and newer spots that have launched in the last couple years. We hope that no matter where you live or are traveling to in the Midcoast that this guide has something to offer.

Please keep your recommendations on where to eat, drink and shop in the Midcoast coming our way. We’d really appreciate your suggestions for additions for next edition of the guide, and your thoughts will help inform the ongoing Food Map road-trip reports.

Many thanks to the Pocket Guide sponsors! Their support plays an essential role in making this resource available: Evergreen Credit Union, the Maine Office of Tourism, Allagash Brewing, and Great Pine Financial Services. Visit their websites to learn more about their businesses.

You can pick-up a free copy of the guide at these Midcoast locations: Vessel & Vine in Brunswick, Treats in Wiscasset, The Alna Store in Alna, Fernald’s Country Store in Damariscotta, Ida’s in Waldoboro, Honey’s in Thomaston, First Fig in Camden and Dot’s Market in Lincolnville. In Portland, you can find a copy at Allagash Brewing and the Portland Trading Company.

Do you need more copies of the pocket guide for a wedding or other event, for your hotel or inn, for a business function or to share with family or other visitors? Then visit our online store where you can purchase the Midcoast and Portland pocket guides in packets of 25.

One final thought: The pocket guide wouldn’t be as good as it, in fact it wouldn’t exist at all, without the skills and contributions of graphic designer Sofija Razgaitis and of Dawn Hagin from Rare Bird Strategic. Congratulate them on their work the next time you see them. Also, many thanks to the Portland Food Map readers who have encouraged and provided advice on the growth of PFM to become more of a statewide resource.

Upcoming Food & Dining Events

| Posted in Events

Monday – The 3rd Annual ChopTails Competition will be taking place at Batson River.

Tuesday – Room for Improvement will be hosting a Pulutan Filipino pop-up by chef Amadeus Florendo.

Wednesday – Mrs. Gee Free Living and Catface Cafe are holding a gluten-free dinner in Biddeford.

Thursday – Dandelion Spring Farm in Bowdoinham will be holding the first of their summer Taco Night series (taking place the 3rd Thursday of each month). See their event calendar for more details.

Thursday-Saturday – The 40th Annual Greek Festival is taking place.

Saturday – The Great Falls Brewfest is taking place in Lewiston.

June 24-30 – The 2nd Annual Wurst Week Ever is taking place at Highroller, Hunt & Alpine, Room for Improvement and Bar Futo.

June 25 – The grand opening and ribbon cutting for the new Stonewall Kitchen shop at 215 Commercial Street is taking place noon to 2 pm.

June 27 – Nina June in Rockport is hosting Naama Shefi for a multi-course prix-fixe dinner in celebration of Shefi’s new book The Jewish Holiday Table.

June 29 – The 3rd Annual Mast Landing Wavy Days Festival is taking place.

June 29/30 – The Maine Oyster Festival is taking place in Freeport.

July 25/26 – The Kneading Conference is taking place in Skowhegan.

August 3/4 – The Maine Wild Blueberry Weekend is taking place.

August 30 – September 1 – The Maine Apple Camp is taking place.

September 8 – The Maine Cheese Festival is taking place in Pittsfield.

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

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

Review of Little Tap House

| Posted in Reviews

The Maine Sunday Telegram has published a review of the Little Tap House.

Highlights among the menu’s new items include sous-vided sirloin with vividly herbal garlic-scape chimichurri; roasted asparagus with prosciutto chips and Sauce Choron; and risotto with locally sourced chestnut mushrooms. For those who want a comfortable and convenient place to drink, Little Tap House still has 14 active tap lines that it fills with beers and ciders from Maine, plus a few from New Hampshire and Vermont. If you visit, don’t skip pastry chef Allie Wanek’s desserts, especially the sweet-and-savory maple pot-de-crème topped with candied walnuts and stewed plums.