Category: Pocket Brunch

The January Pocket Brunch took place at Broadturn Farm in Scarborough on Sunday. James Beard award winner Rob Evans was the guest chef for the meal:

• Soup – Maine sunchoke, fried egg yolk, black truffle and beef tongue grabiche
• Salad – spicy gravlax, trout roe, Maine potato, creme fraiche, and pistachio marmalade
• Meat – gold encrusted fois gras, smoked apple butter, apple chips, quince, pickled apple and black bread
• Egg – sunnyside duck yolk, mortadella, brussel sprout hash, saffron-tobasco hollandaise
• Dessert – Broadturn yogurt parfait with almond milk tapioca, blood orange and couscous granola

Premeal bites were accompanied by coffee from Tandem Coffee Roasters and menu of custom cocktails from the Bearded Lady.

The Golden Dish has published a review of Sunday’s Pocket Brunch.

David Zwickerhill was at the brunch with his camera and has posted an extensive set of photos online.

The lucky few who managed to snag  ticket (they sold out in less than 2 hours) for the December edition of Pocket Brunch assembled this afternoon for a Games of Thrones-themed meal prepared by Josh Potocki, Joel Beauchamp and guest chefs Joe Ricchio and Nolan Stewart.

• Soup – Dothraki Wedding Stew with a Montepulciano d’Abruzzo
• Salad – Dove and Parsnip Pie with Oxbow Saison Noel Ale
• Egg – Roast Quail and Quail Eggs with R. Nicoll Dry Mead
• Meat – Boar Leg  and Belly with Bunker Scotch Ale
• Dessert – Fig Tart with mulled wine

Premeal eats were accompanied by coffee from Tandem Coffee Roasters and drinks by Nanl Meiklejohn.

For more photos from Kings & Commoners visit Zwickerhill Photography.

The November edition of Pocket Brunch took place this afternoon at a industrial building in South Portland near the oil tank yards.

The theme was French Canadian cuisine:

• Soup – yellow split pea, heritage pork, and spiced hog cracklin
• Salad – a poutine of country fries, goose gravy, cheese curds and cranberry ketchup
• Egg – cretons, hen egg, juniper matsutake salt, super sexe bagel and sausage full of secrets
• Meat – arctic char pie with puff pastry and a seaweed salad
• Dessert – maple/black velvet sugar pie and Allen’s coffee brandy ployes cake
• Entertainment – the backside of the drink menus were bingo cards and the crowd joined in rounds of bingo between courses

Josh Potocki and Joel Beauchamp were joined in the kitchen by Rocco Salvatore Talarico and guest chef Nate Nadeau. Tandem served the coffee and Nan’l Meikeljohn created a set of custom cocktails for the event.

For more photos check out the extensive set of image posted by David Zwickerhill.

Planning is already underway for the December Pocket Brunch. Sign-up on the PB site for their mailing list to be alerted when tickets go on sale.

The October edition of Pocket Brunch took place earlier today at Broadturn Farm. Coffee by Tandem, creative cocktails by Nathaniel Meikleljohn (imagine ginger-infused Hendrick’s with cucumber-wasabi puree, lime juice, ginger beer and siracha ice cubes) and fresh pressed cider accompanied premeal bites: cider donut holes, mini-muffins with goat cheese frosting and walnuts, and small buckets of fresh cooked bacon.

With preliminaries completed everyone headed into the barn where two long communal tables were set for the main meal:

• Salad: a communal pile of fresh and pickled Broadturn vegetables paired with anchovy dust and a smoked onion dip
• Soup: a broth of ham and toasted hay enriched with acorns, roasted garlic and parsley
• Egg: a miniature omlet resting on a birds nest of potato sticks with breakfast mayo tamago, local mushroom, house ketchup and nasturtium leaves
• Meat: a pork sausage corndog with a sweet potato and local berry dipping sauces
• Dessert: gingerbread with rum caramel pear buttermilk ice cream which as a suprise were served up in clay pots filled with “potting soil” that had served as table decorations

The menu was a collaboration of Joel Beauchamp, Josh Potocki, and guest chef Karl Deuben. This was an astoundingly good meal and the room showed its appreciation with a standing ovation for the chefs and event organizer Katie Schier-Potocki during the gap between the last two courses.

A photographer from Portland Magazine was there as was Zwickerhill Photography and nearly everyone seemed to grabbing shots on their iPhones. I’ll add links here to other photo sets as they get put online.

UPDATE: David Zwickerhill has posted a large set of photos from the event online, and so has Shel Doyle.

 

The 2nd edition of Pocket Brunch took place this afternoon. Chefs Josh Potocki and Joel Beauchamp were joined by Jay Loring from Nosh. Here’s the menu:

• Edible Ocean – striped bass, periwinkle, mussel sea bean, crispy seaweed
• Nightshade Elixer – tomato water, juniper extraction (shown right)
• Duckhole – duck fat brioche, pickled peppers, duck egg, bogarones, tasso ham, chorizo dust
• Jackalope – antelope and rabbit rillette, cracker, pickle
• Summer S’Mores – cinamon sugar graham cracker, lime marshmallow, blackberry granache, white chocolate

The meal was accompanied by coffee from Tandem Coffee Roasters and cocktails by Nathaniel Mikeljohn.

Along with 29 others lucky enough to buy a ticket before they sold out, I went yesterday to the kick-off of Pocket Brunch. The excellent 5-course meal by Josh Potocki and Joel Beauchamp and guest chef Rocco Salvatore Talarico consisted of:

• Chilled corn soup/melon dots/basil ice/crispy serano
• Broadturn tomato/sheep’s milk ricotta salata/basil/mint/fried lemon panko
• Pork belly/black pepper custard/quail yolk/potato/turnip radish salw/toast
• Buttermilk fried frogs legs/lavendar lemon jelly/parsley shooter/garlic chips
• long pepper rosettes/walnut panna cotta/black and sweet caramel jellies/Korean chili sauce

Coffee was from a new Portland-based nano-roastery, Temperance Coffee Roasters which has the tagline “Coffee Roasted with Fear and Conviction”.

The next Pocket Brunch on the calendar is scheduled for September 2 when the guest chefs will be Aki and Alex from the highly regarded blog Ideas in Food. Tickets are available online.