Food Coma 4th Annual Pumpkin Beer Tasting

| Posted in Reviews

Food Coma has published the results of the 4th Annual Pumpkin  Beer Tasting.

Because we are masochists, and it’s very important to understand your enemy, we put ourselves through this tasting ordeal each year. This time we have managed to up the number of “offerings” to a whopping twenty five, after trudging our way through what we perceived to be an excruciating sixteen last year. As a special gift to the group, I have eliminated both the ill-fated “aged pumpkin” and “blueberry” categories for good.

Off-Peninsula Coffee

| Posted in Profiles

Bourbon. Portland. Beer. Politics. has published a list of coffee shops and cafes off the Portland peninsula.

With coffee shops and cafes like Arabica, Crema, Speckled Ax, Tandem Coffee Roasters, and Bard, the peninsula has no shortage of great coffee and places to enjoy it at. If you are like me, though, you regularly find yourself traveling around off peninsula in the Greater Portland Area and less than knowledgeable about where to grab a cup of coffee.

NYT’s Lobster Tour & HotH’s Lobster Chefs of the Year

| Posted in Reviews, Events

The New York Times Travel section stopped off at The Salt Exchange and Harraseeket Lunch & Lobster as part of a multi-day lobster eating tour of Massachusetts and Maine.

That night, after strolling about Portland, our new lobster base camp, we visited the Salt Exchange and fell hard for the intense lobster risotto, highlighted by flavorful claw and body bits.

According to an article in today’s Press Herald, the Maine Lobster Chefs of the Year were chosen last night at Harvest on the Harbor. Mackenzie Arrington, a native Mainer who now works in New York City, was selected as the people’s choice Lobster chef of the Year, and Kerry Altiero from Cafe Miranda in Rockland was selected as the judge’s choice Lobster Chef of the Year.

In the past, a panel of judges chose the recipes for the contest, but tasting and judging were left solely to the audience.

This year, the judges tried the food as well, scoring it on a 100-point scale for originality, creativity, flavor and use of lobster. The judges were Steve Corry, chef/owner of Five Fifty Five and Petite Jacqueline in Portland; Kathleen Fleury, managing editor of Downeast magazine; and Sharon Rose of WCSH-TV.

Bar Review of Yosaku & Preview of Maine Brewers Festival

| Posted in Reviews, Beer

The Press Herald has published a bar review of Yosaku,

I was so caught up watching them, I forgot to even look at the bar menu before our waitress came around. While Yosaku offers a full selection of white and red wines, its true specialty is a range of sake selections. If you’re a fan of sake, you could spend anywhere between $5 for a small carafe of Ozeki Hot Sake up to $40 for Komatsu Tatewaki “Samurai” Taru Sake.

and a preview of the Maine Brewers Festival.

The festival is not officially part of Portland Beer Week, which runs Nov. 4-11. But it could be viewed as an aperitif, and a lot of the same organizations are involved in both events.

Portland Beer Week & VitaminSea

| Posted in Beer, Profiles

The Food & Dining section in today’s Press Herald includes an article about Portland Beer Week. Portland Beer Week is is taking place November 4-11.

The inaugural year of beer week was well received, but in a lot of ways, beer lovers say, it was kind of like Restaurant Week with beer as an add-on. This year Stevens, who owns The Thirsty Pig on Exchange Street, and her fellow beer geeks have structured an impressive line-up that is overflowing with nearly 60 events. And they did it all in barely two months.

Also in today’s paper is a profile of VitaminSea, a company that sells energy bars and other products that are made with seaweed.

Right now, company founders Tom and Kelly Roth have reached capacity with the number of SeaCrunch bars they can make in the licensed commercial kitchen in their Buxton home. They’re currently churning out about 1,000 bars a week of the mixture made from almonds, sesame seeds, dried cranberries, kelp and maple syrup. Yet, sales of the bars keep growing and the company plans to introduce two new flavors in the coming weeks, Blueberry (with dried blueberries and dark chocolate) and S’mores (with milk chocolate and marshmallows).

Under Construction: Sonnet

| Posted in Under Construction

Chef Damian Sansonetti is working on launching a new restaurant in Portland. Until recently Sansonetti was the Executive Chef at Bar Boulud in New York City. He’s been scouting locations in Portland and in the meantime is running a series of pop-up dinners.

The next pop-up is scheduled for October 30th; interest in the dinners has been quite strong and an additional dinner in early November is likely. For more information on the dinners or to make a reservation email sonnetpopup@gmail.com.

Under Construction: Three Buoys Seafood Shanty & Grille

| Posted in Under Construction

According to a report from the Munjoy Hill News, Three Buoys Seafood Shanty & Grille is under construction at 111 Cumberland Ave in the space formerly occupied by Buffalo Wings-N-Things.

East Enders will soon have another restaurant option from which to select according to Nikole and Bill Holler, owners of the soon-to-be Three Buoys Seafood Shanty & Grille.  The location is at the corner of Cumberland Avenue and Washington Street – the site of the former Buffalo Wings restaurant.  That’s where mhn.com met them early this afternoon.