This Week’s Events: Hot Wing Challenge, Old Port Festival, Blue Gold, Greenflash

| Posted in Events

Wednesday — the Monument Square Farmers Market is taking place.

Thursday — the 1st Annual Maine Hot Wing Cook-Off Challenge is taking place, and The Great Lost Bear is showcasing a selection of beers from the Brooklyn Brewing.

Friday — Think Tank is screening the movie Blue Gold, and Novare Res will be showcasing beer from Greenflash Brewery.

Saturday — Wine Wise is leading a wine walk featuring trendsetting European Whites, there will be a wine tasting at Rosemont on Brighton, and the Deering Oaks Farmers Market is taking place.

Sunday — it’s the 39th Annual Old Port Festival.

Twilight Dinners — tickets are now on sale for Cultivating Community’s Twilight Dinners. The dinners have proved so popular that they’re now a weekly occurrence starting July 5.

For more information on these and other upcoming food happenings in the area, visit the event calendar.

If you are holding a food event this week that’s not listed above, publicize it by adding it as a comment to this post.

Review of Zapoteca

| Posted in Reviews

Down East has published a review of Zapoteca.

And while there are plenty of low-heat options on the menu, Zapoteca’s chili-powered flavor combinations are the main attraction. Ceviche veracruzano, for instance, comes in a tall martini glass surrounded by a tangle of fresh tortilla chips. Fresh white fish is “cooked” in lime juice and served with a spicy salsa of tomatoes, jalapeños, and green olives. Among the entrees, which include a local beef filet with garlic chipotle mashed potatoes and an ancho chipotle sauce, the pork carnitas should not be missed. Pork shoulder is braised until it falls apart, then pressed, cut, and crisped in the wood oven and served with pickled red onions, black beans, and homemade tortillas. It’s comfort food, Mexican-style.

Foodworks, Taco Escobarr & Rising Tide

| Posted in Reviews, Beer

The Press Herald has published reviews of Foodworks (4 stars),

The bottom line is that Foodworks is a quality neighborhood sandwich shop with well-made lunches full of fresh ingredients. Somehow, it has flown a bit under the radar in this foodie town, but here’s hoping more people will discover it and give it a try.

and Taco Escobarr,

Name aside, I was just excited to see that the bar offered a blood-orange margarita on its menu. Those of you who have heard my story about a recent trip to New York City know exactly how much I love blood-orange margaritas. And for $5.50? That’s a pretty hard price to beat.

as well as a report on Rising Tide’s new headquarters in Bayside.

Heather Sanborn, who describes herself as “marketing director and everything else except brewer” for Rising Tide, was excited to show off the brewery’s new Bayside home. But she and husband Nathan, the brewer, were even more excited about the new 15-barrel brewing system that was due to arrive Wednesday. The system was built by DME Brewing Services on Prince Edward Island, Canada.

Fast Food’s Failure

| Posted in General News

The Forecaster has published the results from their survey of hot water temps at local fast food restaurants.

The biggest burger chains on the planet fail to consistently provide local customers and employees with the water temperatures needed to facilitate sanitary hand washing – despite state and federal requirements that they do so.

This is part of the paper’s ongoing focus on restaurant health inspections. See earlier articles here and here.

Employee Gardens at IDEXX and Harvard Pilgrim

| Posted in General News

The Food & Dining section in today’s Press Herald includes a report on employee gardens at two local companies.

For the second year, Patty Cook is gardening on company time.

A manager at Idexx Laboratories, Cook is one of hundreds of employees cultivating crops for local food pantries behind the global veterinary testing company’s sprawling corporate headquarters in Westbrook.