Eventide won the Editor’s Choice Award and the Clam Shack in Kennebunk took home the title of America’s Best Lobster Roll at the Lobster Roll Rumble.
For additional reporting see these articles in the Bangor Daily News and Portland Press Herald. Serious Eats has published a slideshow of all 20 rolls that were in the competition.
This week’s Portland Phoenix includes a short article about food trucks and quiz that challenges you to match-up the trucks with the owners.
This week the paper also published a review of Wicked Good Street Kitchen.
Their version of the BLT was more sophisticated — with terrific Iraqi flatbread and lots of crunchy and bitter arugula. The thin bread let you really taste the thick salty bacon, the sweet tomato, and the tangy-sour mayo. A falafel sandwich was very similar, but a bit less rewarding since the chickpeas obscured the other flavors a bit. A “raw pad Thai” is actually more like a really nice salad in the French tradition of diced root veggies. The noodles are actually crunchy radish, and the sauce is more tahini-creamy than nutty. There is plenty of crunchy kale, carrot, and sweet red pepper.
According to a report from Mujoy Hill News,
Mike G. Fink, owner of MIKE’s, said today that his restaurant is under contract to sell to two young men who want to start up a co-op at the popular 437 Congress Street address.
Portland Daily Sun columnist Natalie Ladd explains the calculus of eating out for professional restaurant staff.
If we have a rare night off and aren’t doing a week’s worth of laundry, playing poker with our co-workers, or working anyway by covering someone else’s shift, that dining out thing could just happen. More often than not, it takes planning to have a quality “Go Out and Be Waited On” experience where we’re the one who’s being pampered, tended to and made to feel as if our business/money matters. The problem is, it’s damn near impossible to do so, especially in our own backyard. There are several professional and personal reasons why this is the case.
Today’s Press Herald includes an article about Josh Christie’s new book Maine Beer: Brewing in Vacationland.
In addition to stories about the founders and the start of each brewery, Christie writes about many of the beers from each brewery, usually tells readers his favorites, and often describes how the beers were named.
He ends with a description of some of the best beer bars in the state.
Christie writes the blog Brews & Books.
The June issue of The Bollard includes an interview with Mark Gatti, owner of Mark’s Hot Dog’s, in recognition of the 30th anniversary of his food cart.
June 13 marks the 30th anniversary of Mark’s Hot Dogs. Mark Gatti is still in the same spot — Tommy’s Park, in Portland’s Old Port — slinging franks out of the same red wooden cart he and his father built. In 1983, one of Gatti’s dogs set you back 60 cents. Today, it’s $2.50, and credit cards are accepted. In addition to the traditional brown and red hot dogs with ketchup, mustard, onions, chili or kraut, you can pick up an Italian sausage for $5. The Old Porker, a recent special, has bacon, sour cream and sautéed onions ($3). And the bomb dogs ($3.50) are so loaded with toppings and condiments that Gatti gives you a paper plate to catch the mess.
For additional reporting on Mark’s 30th anniversary see this article in the Portland Daily Sun.
The Press Herald, Munjoy Hill News, and Bangor Daily News have all posted reports on Portland’s new online service which posts city health inspection reports online.
The restaurant health inspection reports are available here:
Food & Wine included Bite into Maine on their list of America’s Best Lobster Rolls.
Sweeter Salt has published a piece on last month’s edition of Portland Dishcrawl.
A few months ago I was contacted by Mary from Dishcrawl Portland. Dishcrawl is much like a pub crawl, but with restaurants. At each event, ticket holders visit four restaurants in one night, sampling each restaurant’s specialties and meeting the chefs or owners. They aim to create a community by bringing Portlanders together with chefs and restaurants. Since I love Portland and I love food, I was pretty excited at the opportunity to give it a try. In May I joined the group and had a great time.
Knack Factory has published a podcast interview with Joel Beauchamp about the success Pocket Brunch has enjoyed, the people involved and plans for the future.
Alex Steed: On what, if anything, Pocket Brunch says about Maine?
Joel: Maine is not just what’s happening in a certain little subset of people who frequent certain restaurants and summer up the coast… That’s great; good for them. But there are a bunch of wildly creative people taking risks every day, trying crazy things and some of it doesn’t work while some of it does. But there are people doing super creative things. Pocket Brunch is proof that if you give all these guys who are working at great restaurants, but they’re doing the same thing or same kind of food over and over… [It’s proof that these] are guys who want to be trying new things or crazy stuff.