A new restaurant named Spread is under construction at 100 Commercial Street. The location was formerly the home of Gaucho’s and before that of Oolong.
Spread’s owner is Jung Hur who has been the head chef at Fuji for several years. Spread’s menu “will consist of a blend of American and Asian cuisine.” A draft menu (page 46) was submitted along with the restaurant’s liquor license application.
Today’s Portland Daily Sun reports on the formation of a Food Truck Task Force in Portland.
Food trucks could be rolling into Portland as soon as this summer, if a rulemaking process goes as envisioned, officials say.
A city council subcommittee on Thursday unanimously approved the formation of a task force charged with discussing the pros and cons of allowing food trucks to operate in the city. The task force will lay the groundwork for a food truck discussion before the council, a discussion that officials want to have sometime this spring.
The Maine Culinary Podcast has posted an interview with Jeff Landry, chef/owner of The Farmer’s Table.
…we spent quite a bit of time discussing where he sources their food and different challenges that arise seasonally, when trying to keep everything local.
We also spent some time talking about organic, humane and sustainable farming and how that translates to their beer and wine list. The wine list is carefully being re-done and Jeff explains the importance of not only being an organic and sustainable vineyard, but also the importance of biodynamics.
Instant Portland has posted a look at Fore Street’s 2 gelato shops: Gorgeous Gelato and Gelato Fiasco.
I suspect you’re expecting me to come down on one side or the other – to pick a shop as the top gelato shop in the city. I’m not going to. Instead, I’m going to encourage you to try them both and see which one you like the best. Like chocolate and vanilla, they are very different shops but each delicious in their own way. Fore Street is one of the most visible locations in the city, with heavy foot traffic, and I’m confident that both shops will do well…
The resident food bloggers at Down East and Maine magazine have coincidentally both published reviews of El Rayo Cantina today. Joe Ricchio writes for Maine that,
Though I rarely encounter deviled eggs that I don’t like, the Cantina’s version are pickled with hibiscus, giving them a brilliant magenta coloring and providing a nice amount of tangy acidity to compliment the rich, creamy yolks. These would pair up brilliantly with a glass of mellow Anejo tequila such as Don Julio 1942.
and reflecting on the same dish John Golden writes in his blog The Golden Dish,
I also loved the deviled eggs, colored from its pickling process in hibiscus. The lighting is low in the room, and the egg whites looked brownish, but in bright light one would have seen that it had red hues.
This week’s What Ales You column reports on Bull Jagger’s upcoming release of their 2nd beer, a Baltic Porter.
The Baltic Porter, which I tasted before it was carbonated, is an intense beer, with quite a bit of sweetness and notes of chocolate, coffee and toffee, and had just a bit of bite at the back of the palate from the rye. I liked it a lot, and expect it will be even better once it is bottled and carbonated.
According to an article in today’s Press Herald, the Maine shrimp season will be ending tomorrow,
As a conservation measure, fishermen were allowed to harvest no more than 4.9 million pounds of shrimp this year from the Gulf of Maine. The catch limit has probably already been exceeded, prompting regulators to shut down the fishery.