Sweet Avieve’s Food Blog has published a review of N To Tail.
If you are seeking a fun and interactive meal, N to Tail is an opportunity not to be missed. Serving lunch and dinner from a fusion menu upstairs, you do have to wait until 5pm for the BBQ section to be open, however it is absolutely worth it!
Sticky Sweet (instagram) opened the Cumberland Ave shop on Saturday. They’ll be back open at 119 Cumberland Ave serving their vegan ice cream on Thursday – Sunday, noon to 10 pm.
The Maine Sunday Telegram has reviewed Other Side Diner.
At their new endeavor, Other Side Diner, which opened this April, the couple have adopted the same approach in building a menu of simple, high-quality lunch-and-breakfast dishes made from mostly local ingredients. Sandwiches are excellent — everything from egg salad layered with runny-yolked hard boiled eggs; a savory grilled chicken club made with juicy breast meat and thick-cut peameal bacon; to a shrimp salad BLT slathered with lemon-garlic mayo. It’s also hard to go wrong with breakfast dishes like Greek-yogurt enriched pancakes that stand up to drizzles of Maine maple syrup or spoonfuls of lowbush blueberry compote, or best of all: a spinach-and-cheese omelette executed nearly flawlessly and served with crisp-tender hash browns. All 35 of their seats deserve to be filled every day.
Owl & Whale (website, facebook, instagram) has leased space where they’re building out a retail shop and tasting room.
A new food cart called Chula Elotes (instagram) launched this week. They sell a menu of corn on the cobs that runs from plain with butter, salt and pepper to ones topped with brightly colored ingredients like the Chula and Takis Fuego.
The corn is from Fenderson Farm in Saco.
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Restaurateurs, Jason Loring and Mike Fraser, are in the process of buying Congress Bar & Grill.
They plan to keep the restaurant’s casual feel and will be putting in place an approachable “tavern style” food that will be a departure from the menu at Nosh. They aspire to have a great bar with great food that balances value and quality serving lunch and dinner. Loring shared he’s dedicated to keeping the restaurant an affordable alternative place to eat in the city.
Loring and Fraser plan to close the restaurant for a couple months for some renovations to the space. It will re-open under the name CBG. The atmosphere they’re aiming for is “like your eccentric uncle’s basement bar”. The reconfigured CBG will open the space and make the bar more a focal point.
Loring is in the process of recruiting a chef for Congress Bar & Grill. If you’re interested in interviewing for the position, email jason@noshkitchenbar.com.
The restaurant at 617 Congress Street began life as Norm’s Bar & Grill and changed names to Congress Bar & Grill in 2011 when the ownership changed.
Here are a few more updates on closings, expansion and ownership changes:
The Bangor Daily News has taken a look at the factors impacting recent changes in the restaurant landscape in Portland.
Locals assert that the wave of sudden closures smacks of gentrification — which is fair, and also related to the workforce shortage. Rising rents have displaced the city’s typically younger ( and indebted) service-industry workers into suburbs like South Portland and Westbrook, making it hard for restaurants to retain staff, whose wages often depend on tips that can dry up in the winter months when tourism dwindles.
Conde Nast Traveler has published a set of articles about Portland that highlight their picks for the:
CN Traveler ha also published an article about Maine Food for Thought tours,
Sarah and Bryce Hack, the married couple behind the tour, are consummate professionals who know their Maine food—not to mention all the ways Maine’s complex food system, its agricultural policy, farm-to-table ethos, economic challenges, and historic dedication to high-quality foods yields the creative dishes Portland restaurants are known for. Their delivery is eloquent and fascinating, organized and well-rehearsed.
The Bangor Daily News has published an update on the Shipyard brewery hotel (aka brewtel) planned for the India Street neighborhood.
The six-story hotel will have an indoor-outdoor bar on the rooftop, where owners also plan to grow hops for partner Shipyard and serve local food on a menu curated by celebrity chef Fabio Vivani.