Category: General News

An article on Serious Eats entitled “3 Reasons to Be Excited about Coffee Right Now” cites Tandem Coffee as an example of the “rising tide of great new roasters” springing up across the country.

The Blueberry Files has made a plea for all Portland restaurants to use Maine maple syrup.

But for those that don’t, shame on you. (That’s right, shame!) In Maine, Maine maple syrup should be the default syrup served with pancakes and waffles. We’re a tourist-driven city, and if we don’t show off our state’s products, then how are we to expect visitors to be interested in them?

The Huffington Post has calculated that “Portland-Auburn” has the 8th highest ratio of eateries per capita in the nation.

HuffPost Food used data from The NPD Group’s annual ReCount survey, which takes a yearly census of the number of restaurants in the country, to rank United States metropolitan areas by the number of restaurants per capita.

The Golden Dish has posted some suggestions on improving the winter farmers market.

The market needs  to reinvent itself, creating an  exciting environment that includes an expanded marketplace of farm-related products beyond what comes from the field.  More variety would fill in when the natural demise of produce finally takes a rest for the winter.  More baked goods, prepared foods, seafood, crafts and the like would be vital additions.

The Portland Phoenix has kicked-off their 2013 Best of Portland readership poll. The Phoenix readership poll is a 2 step process:

• Step 1 which just started, nominate candidates you think are an especially good fit in any or all of the categories
• Step 2, next month the Phoenix will publish a ballot summarizing the top nominees from each category for us to vote on

There are a plethora of food and drink categories (Bagels, Bars, Barbecue, Beer Selection, Brewpubs, Brunch, etc) to make nominations in there’s even one for food blogs. A list of the 2012 winners is available online as a reference.

If the 2013 polls follows the same schedule as past years then the final results will be made public in April at a live event at the Port City Music Hall.

Valentine’s Day menu and recipes from chef Steve Corry, chef/owner of Five Fifty-Five, are in the February issue of O magazine.

Maine a la Carte reports that Po’Boys plans to start selling their macaroons in retail markets under the name Choomi.

Well, come this spring customers won’t have to wait until their next trip to the restaurant to get their coconut macaroon fix. [Owner Peter] Zinn has decided to bring them to a wider audience by manufacturing them for local grocery stores.

According to a report on Maine a la Carte, Bresca started serving lunch yesterday.

The new lunch menu will be “smallish,” and the chef will change it up when she gets an idea of what guests prefer, but she promises there will always be a good price point for the quality of the food. Most of the dishes on Wednesday’s menu were between $9 and $12.

That’s not all. She’s also planning to make pastries for eating in or take-out (think tarts, eclairs, etc.), and Bresca will probably start opening even earlier when that part of the plan is ready to launch. Desjarlais has floated similar plans in the past, but says she has now found “the nerve” to actually make the changes. She said she wants the new version of her restaurant to grow organically, and hopes to find her own niche in the Portland lunch scene.