The Portland Phoenix has published a brunch review of Vignola.
So, panic aside, I chose the Vignola omelette with tomatoes, basil, bruschetta, and Vignola potatoes. The potato part alone was worth it. In addition to using a mixture of potato varieties, including purple potatoes, it also had olives, roasted red peppers, and capers mixed in. While these additions certainly added a strong olive-oil component to the dish, frankly, what is an Italian meal without a good dose of olive oil?
Appetite Portland shares her struggles in filling out the Portland Phoenix readership poll in a city awash with good food,
I’m telling you, it was epic. Brow furrowed, I hunched over my laptop, punching things in and erasing — sweating over “most romantic restaurant” and “best pizza” as if my opinions meant life and death.
but doesn’t hesitate to endorse Scratch’s as peanut butter cookie as Best Cookie.
Food for Thought weighs in on the challenges organizers face in launching a Winter farmers’ market in Portland.
The market organizers thought Portland was a natural area of growth for a winter market –set to open next week–a larger venue for farmers to pull in much needed income off season that helps to keep their farming efforts viable year-round…What the city of Portland has done is to impose outrageous fees that the farmers can’t afford.
The Food & Dining section in today’s Press Herald includes a selected list of restaurants that will be offering special Valentine’s Day meals, a look at the food related exhibits and programs on tap this months at the Museum of Art and some advice on preparing traditional and vegetarian eats for Super Bowl Sunday.
The organizers of Maine Restaurant Week have published the list of participating restaurants with pricing and contact info to their website. Some of the entries also include details on the MRW menus. The site promises that the rest of the “menus plus other details will be added as quickly as they come in”.
Both Wicked Joe and Coffee by Design are vying to become USM’s new coffee supplier according to an article in the USM Free Press.
A survey this week will give students a chance weigh in on the future of USM’s coffee offerings, as dining services seeks to switch to a local supplier in a push for a ‘greener’ bean.
“We are trying to work within our sustainability goals and make more purchases from local suppliers,” said Mark Allen, director of USM’s dining services.
The 10 eateries looked up most often in January were:
The numbers in parentheses indicates their rank last month.
Today’s Press Herald delves into the ordinance governing farmers’ markets in the city and how that’s impacting the organizers of the new Winter market.
When the group that coordinates the Brunswick Winter Market announced plans to open a similar market in a building on Free Street, its organizers didn’t think they would have to comply with a city ordinance governing the farmers markets in Deering Oaks and Monument Square.
Though the winter market isn’t affiliated with the Portland Farmers Market and won’t operate on city-owned property, Portland officials see it differently.
The Forecaster is proposing an Iron Chef-style cooking competition to combat the Winter doldrums.
Here in Portland, in February, things can get a little slow. Snow has lost a bit of its charm. Darkness lasts a little too long. Winter has set in… I say we celebrate anther one of Portland’s great attractions, its restaurants, with a cooking contest…We need a place to do it, sponsors to fund it, a moderator to keep the action going, and some judges to make the decisions. Each week during the darkest days of winter, a pair of chefs could face off, until we crown a champion.
Sounds good to me. Just one question, who’d be our Alton Brown?
A couple years ago when Jonathan Levitt introduced Boston Globe readers to Bresca (see A Chef’s Vision Becomes a Tiny Treasure of a Restaurant), he explained that “Because Bresca is so small, Kern can pick up a lot of her own groceries. She buys locally, from farmers, fish markets, and supermarkets. This morning her first stop is Hannaford’s.”
And recently when the Maine magazine published an article—also by Levitt—about Rob Evans from Hugo’s, I read that the James Beard Award winner also sources some of his raw ingredients at Hannaford: pommegranates, offal, pumpkin seeds, etc.
It makes me wonder if I were to hang out in the Hannaford produce section one morning would I see a parade of Portland’s culinary notables streaming through. Are these two outliers or would I see Corry, Hayward, Villani, Matthews, Desjarlais, Hernandez, Harmon, and others shopping trips for the night’s menu?