Fried Green Savannah bloggers Nathan and Kenda Williams visited Portland this Summer and they have posted a number of photos from their eating tour. Becky’s, the Farmers Market, Portland Pie, Two Fat Cats, Sonny’s, The Great Lost Bear, MDI Ice Cream, Gritty’s, Duckfat were all represented.
Today’s Press Herald examines the City’s approval for The Porthole to reopen just 2 days after it had been closed for critical health violations.
A string of emails shows that city officials scrambled to reopen three waterfront businesses soon after they were closed this month for health code violations, including a “serious rat infestation.”
The emails show that the city’s health inspector originally estimated it would take a week or two for the Porthole restaurant, the Comedy Connection nightclub and the Harbour’s Edge banquet hall to come into compliance.
They were cleared to reopen within two days.
Today’s Press Herald includes a front page article on the Food Science program at the University of Maine,
At a time when enrollment at UMaine is down overall, a record number of students is enrolling in the university’s Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition.
advice on how to best store your growing home wine collection,
How should you store the wine you keep at home for dinner parties or your own drinking pleasure? Do you really need one of those wine refrigerators that are so popular these days? And when should you take the leap to a real wine cellar?
and an article about a documentary on MOO Milk.
In a film that is at turns humorous, heart-wrenching and very humane, Pingree and Mann follow three farm families in Aroostook County and Downeast Maine as they and seven other farms strike out on their own to create Maine’s Own Organic Milk Co., better known as MOO Milk.
Natalie Ladd has weighed in on the issue in her weekly column in the Portland Daily Sun,
The Portholes of the world (and once again, they are not alone) should be the minority and should be closed down. Unless we pull out the safety and cleaning checklists and actually use them in a structured, consistent fashion, much more than a sketchy economy is going to hurt our pockets.
and the Press Herald includes an editorial on the need for more restaurant inspectors.
A city the size of Portland, especially one that has so many restaurants, should have more than one inspector for this important job. Portland will never maintain its reputation as a “foodie” city if it can’t assure the public that its commercial kitchens follow the law. If restaurant owners think the inspections are a pain, wait until they can’t prove that their businesses comply with safety standards. They will be anxious to get the health department’s attention.
According to a report in today’s Press Herald, the City is planning to adjust the restaurant inspection code, increase fees and add more inspectors.
City Manager Mark Rees said he intends to ask for funding in next year’s budget for additional restaurant inspectors and resources. Portland has one full-time inspector, who inspected only 49 of the city’s 800 eating establishments in her first year on the job. She failed 39 of them. State law requires restaurants to be inspected every two years.
The Press Herald has published another article about restaurant inspections in Portland,
[President of the Maine Restaurant Association Dick] Grotton said Portland restaurants, many of which are in old buildings, are being cited for facility issues, such as not having a covered trash recetacle in the ladies room.
Instead of focusing on what are considered non-critical violations, he said, the city should concentrate on critical violations that could lead to illness.
“There are degrees of bad,” he said. “We need to separate what’s really important and what’s just part of the code.”
MPBN also interviewed Groton about the restaurant inspection process,
But Dick Grotton, president of the Maine Restaurant Association, says the records alone don’t provide a complete picture – mainly because some of the violations have nothing to do with food safety. Grotton spoke with MPBN’s Jennifer Mitchell.
The full Maine Food Code is available online on Maine.gov.
Today’s Press Herald widens their reporting on restaurant health inspections. Based on city documents they found that,
In August 2011, Portland hired its first health inspector devoted to restaurants. Since then, the inspector, Michele Sturgeon, has inspected 49 restaurants and failed 39 of them. Six failed initial follow-up inspections and three failed multiple follow-ups. In general, a restaurant fails if it has more than 13 violations.
There’s a report that the state has criticized “Portland officials Thursday for allowing the owner of [The Porthole] to cook a lobster dinner for a wedding reception in a kitchen that had been closed for health code violations.”
The Press Herald has published another article in its continuing coverage of the health inspection issues at The Porthole.
Less than a month before the Porthole was shut down for health code violations, the city’s health inspector documented 28 violations at the waterfront restaurant but allowed it to stay open.
The Food & Dining section in today’s Press Herald includes an article about Maine’s cider industry,
Hard apple cider is a longtime New England tradition, and has a storied history in America going all the way back to the founders. Now the fizzy brew is finding new fans, thanks in part to small, local producers who are turning out a more European-style cider that’s tarter than the sweet stuff that’s usually produced in this country.
a preview of the eating options and educational programs at this weekend’s Common Ground Fair, the paper’s annual apple buying guide and an Appel on Wine column on coffee.
Coffee by Design co-owner, Mary Ellen Lindermann, and a CBD barista, Emily Broadbent, were on the Fox morning show yesterday to talk about Coffee by Design’s line up of specialty Fall drinks.