Category: General News

An article in today’s Press Herald reports on an investigation at Petite Jacqueline.

A popular Portland restaurant was investigated this month as a possible source of food-borne illness, the second such investigation of the restaurant in 18 months.

Health officials zeroed in on Petite Jacqueline after a food handler and a patron were stricken by the same bacterial illness on June 1, but they could not prove the restaurant’s food was the cause – or that it wasn’t – because too much time had passed since the people who became sick were exposed.

According to a report from the Bangor Daily News, Mainely Burgers food truck and the Urban Farm Fermentory were recipients of Entreverge Awards for their “scalable vision for the future and a long term commitment to the people, place and prosperity of Maine”.

The Entreverge awards are about recognizing the entrepreneurial spirit of Portland, Huckel-Bauer said, and are “part of making the city a more attractive place for young people to come and start businesses.”

Maine a la Carte has published a piece about the new menu concept at Miyake on Fore Street.

Don’t worry. If you already loved Miyake, the rug isn’t going to be pulled out from under you. The changes that are being made are designed to put customers more at ease and offer them more choices on the menu, which will “still be Japanese but a different interpretation of it,” says manager William Garfield.

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.

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.

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:

http://www.portlandmaine.gov/hhs/foodsafetyinspect.asp

Eater Maine has published some details on the renovations underway at Hugo’s.

For her weekly Portland Daily Sun column Natalie Ladd looks at the futility of trying to predict when a restaurant will be busy or not.

These things are in addition to the obvious method of comparing sales and head counts. I’ve seen many places with flow charts and graphs, all intended to make food and alcohol ordering, and doing the kitchen and front-of-the house schedule a snap. Contrary to all the “what ifs” and basic common sense, these things just don’t always hold true when predicting how busy it’s going to be. In other words, betting on the timing of the financial peaks and pitfalls of the restaurant business would be foolish for a gambler and chalk up a win for the house at Oxford Casino.

Remi Designs is a finalists in the American Institute of Architects restaurant design competition for their work on Outliers Eatery. It’s a people’s choice award and voting is open to the public.