Food could put Portland on the map

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Food could put Portland on the map

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By MEREDITH GOAD, Staff Writer

Thursday, April 5, 2007



OK, Portlanders, time to practice our fake smiles, just in case our name isn't called.
Remember, it's an honor just to be nominated.
Our fair city is one of three finalists for "Delicious Destination of the Year" in the 2007 Food Network Awards. The winners will be announced during the network's first awards show, starting at 9 p.m. on April 15, hosted by Emeril Lagasse, one of the network's most popular chefs.
Our competition is Minneapolis -- lutefisk, anyone? -- and (snarl) that other Portland on the West Coast. Not exactly the Meryl Streeps of fine dining.
Portland is fast gaining national stature as a food town. The city has sailed beyond its reputation as a great place to chow down on lobsters and blueberries and is becoming known for fine restaurants that serve locally grown, organic foods. Rob Evans, chef and co-owner of Hugo's on Middle Street, is nominated this year for Best Chef: Northeast by the James Beard Foundation, along with two other Maine chefs, Mark Gaier and Clark Frasier of Arrows Restaurant in Ogunquit.
Food and Wine magazine announced on Wednesday that Steve Corry, chef and co-owner of Five Fifty-Five on Congress Street, is on its list of the nation's 10 "Best New Chefs" for 2007.
A Food Network team chose Portland and the two other contenders after visiting new and established restaurants, as well as cookware stores, farms, bakeries and green markets.
Susan Stockton, senior vice president for culinary production at the network, called Portland "a small city with a big voice" and said folks in the food scene here are "passionate, proud and well-versed about their part of the food world."
"Not only do they take advantage of their amazing seaside bounty," she said, "but they have developed a system of local farmers, bakers, creative chefs and foodies who keep raising the bar on the quality and diversity of their offerings."
The awards show was taped on Feb. 23 in Miami, but no one's saying whether Portland took home the trophy, which is a silver piece of cake. And Emeril -- for once -- isn't talking.
Portland Mayor Nick Mavodones Jr. said he was asked to film a 30-second spot at City Hall for the show, but he doesn't know if Portland came out on top.
Mavodones was diplomatic and refused to talk trash about the competition.
"I think they're both bigger cities than Portland, so the fact that we're a 65,000-person community and we're stacking up against those that are considerably larger says a lot about Portland and the quality of the eateries here," he said.
Other categories in the Food Network version of the Oscars cover kitchen technology and grocery stores (Whole Foods Market, a newcomer to the Portland area, is nominated in this category).
The Viewers' Choice categories, which viewers voted for online, are the most fun.
Nominees for Favorite Food Combo are mac and cheese, meatloaf and mashed potatoes, milk and cookies, and grilled cheese and tomato soup.
Peas and carrots will be getting a lifetime achievement award.
Just kidding.
 
Editorial

Top chefs brighten Portland's rising culinary reputation


In the past few years, Portland has landed on many national lists and surveys of great places to live. Invariably these accolades feature a tip of the hat to the Old Port and its dining scene.
But it's tough to suppress that smidgen of surprise that comes from our city's being named a finalist for the Food Network's Delicious Destination award of 2007.
The other finalists, which include Minneapolis and that other Portland on the West Coast, might lead one to ask, "What about New York, San Fran, L.A.?" This award, to be announced April 15, is meant to promote a destination whose cuisine is on the rise, and our Portland richly merits that tag.
This past Wednesday, Food and Wine Magazine tapped Five Fifty-Five chef and co-owner Steve Corry for its just-released list of the country's 10 Best New Chefs, an award Rob Evans, chef and co-owner of Hugo's, won in 2004. Evans was nominated for this year's Best Chef: Northeast honor by the prestigious James Beard Foundation, the title Sam Hayward took back to his Fore Street restaurant in 2004.
Clearly, Portland's not just about seafood anymore. These and other fine local chefs have created a delicious regional cuisine by turning to local and organic Maine food purveyors to bring the height of freshness and flavor to their dishes.
It's not only Portland, either. Melissa Kelly of Primo in Rockland won the James Beard Northeast crown in 1999. Up for this year's top award alongside Evans are four-time finalists Clark Frasier and Mark Gaier of Arrows Restaurant in Ogunquit.
Portland, and indeed Maine, are just crammed with great places to eat. We don't need the Food Network to tell us that we're Tasty Town.
 
I call BS on all these food awards. Why isn't Buxton mentioned? Buxton is known as the best small city in the world for food, entertainment, and culture. Ask Pat, he knows.
 
In this week's addition of the gazette, they have renderings of the new elementary/middle school that is going to be built in Buxton. It looks big. Its going to be built behind FJ somewhere along RT. 22, at an intersection that I am unfamiliar with.

A new school, a new hannaford grocery store, a new credit union...all in a year's time span...that sounds like pretty impressive growth for a farm town 15 miles outside of the city.

- And speaking about places far outside fo the city, I was listening to the Q this morning on my commute to work and there was a lady listening from rochester. N.H......that's like, what, 100 miles away?
 
Crazy how far you can pick up radio stations. In portland, you can pick up WBZ in Boston crystal clear.
 
Q-97 comes in in Farmington, WRED comes in in Portsmouth. JAM'N 94.5 from Boston comes in in Kittery, but not any farther north than that. I think it has something to do with how tall the signal tower is because it allows the radio waves to travel farther around the curvature of the earth. Pop radio stations come in for longer distances, I have noticed, I think because the appeal to wider audiences...but urban radio stations, like WJZP in portland (Jazz and R&B) stop coming in right outside of the city, because they have smaller (and younger) audiences that are found closer to urban cores.
 
AM 1000 or 1100 or something is from Cleveland and I can pick that up at night. That's a long damn way.
 
My guess is that if that's the case then the signal is probably triangulated via satellite
 
Patrick said:
In this week's addition of the gazette, they have renderings of the new elementary/middle school that is going to be built in Buxton. It looks big. Its going to be built behind FJ somewhere along RT. 22, at an intersection that I am unfamiliar with.

A new school, a new hannaford grocery store, a new credit union...all in a year's time span...that sounds like pretty impressive growth for a farm town 15 miles outside of the city.

- And speaking about places far outside fo the city, I was listening to the Q this morning on my commute to work and there was a lady listening from rochester. N.H......that's like, what, 100 miles away?
Click to expand...
The school has to be approved by the voters which is very doubtful. I think the price tag was around $30 million wasn't it?
Question about Whole Foods (Great Grocery Store). Why do they put up this nice looking building and the when you drive up Franklin Street all you see in the tall windows facing the Street is a pile of boxes, crap. It looks horrible and bugs the hell out of me. Couldn't they have put in one-way glass so that you wouldn't have to see all of that shit. It really takes away from the building and looks like crap, especially since they pride themselves on being so neat on the inside.
 
I have no idea about whole foods. i think the whole building is a dump and waste of space. do we really need supermarkets all over the place? Why not locate them all off of the peninsula? They come in handy when you need food, sure, but they also bring along their friends: large and many times empty parking lots. what a waste.
 
Portland comes in 2nd place for delicious destination of the year by the Food Network, ahead of minneapolis

Side dish: Chefs get noticed
By Kate Bucklin (published: April 26, 2007)
Kudos to Five Fifty-Five owner and chef Steve Corry for catching the eye of Food & Wine. Corry made the national epicurean magazine?s Best New Chefs list for 2007. The chef and his wife, Michelle Corry (general manager and wine director), opened Five Fifty-Five nearly four years ago and have been winning local and national acclaim ever since. The restaurant, at 555 Congress St. in Portland, serves ?California-influenced American? cuisine, according to the chef.

Chef Lee Skawinski of Cinque Terre and Vignola is featured as ?This Week?s Chef? on StarChefs.com. There?s a brief biography of the chef and his recipe for Pork Scallopini with Balsamic Vinegar and Radicchio (more of Skawinski?s recipes are available to site subscribers).

Uffa! restaurant was scheduled to reopen Wednesday after suffering some damage during the April 5 snowstorm. The restaurant at 190 State St. will also host a charity dinner May 7 at 6 p.m. to benefit the seven-member Lord family of Durham, which lost their home to a fire in March. Tickets are $75 and include a five-course meal and five glasses of wine.

Portland was edged out by the other Portland (the one in Oregon) for the Delicious Destination of the Year award presented April 15 by the Food Network as part of its first awards program. Minneapolis rounded out the three finalists.

A sign in the door at Binga?s Wingas Portland Street location says the place is closed for renovations. Meanwhile, owners of the beer and wings hotspot ? who also have a place on Congress Street ? have their eyes on a four-story building at 6 Washington Ave. An application recently submitted to the city requests permission to rehabilitate the property into a third Binga?s outpost.

West End Pizza Gallery, which served up traditional Japanese noodle dishes alongside Italian sandwiches and slices, has closed. The windows and doors of the Spring Street spot ? once home to Blue Mango ? were covered with newspaper during a recent stroll through the neighborhood.

Main Street in South Portland has a new Mexican eatery. Mi Mexico Lindo recently opened at 671 Main St. The restaurant and cantina also has locations in Methuen and Melrose, Mass. The menu is extensive, with options ranging from Steak a la Chicana to the vegetarian Guiso Ranchero.

In other Mexican food news, El Camino, the popular Brunswick restaurant, won permission last week from the Portland Zoning Board of Appeals to open on Ocean Avenue.

The ZBA also approved a request from embattled Deering Center property owner Joe Pompeo to open a neighborhood restaurant on Stevens Avenue, in the storefront unsuccessfully sought last year for Dunkin? Donuts.

Front Room on Munjoy Hill shows no signs of slowing, as was evident by the number of people crammed into the entrance on a recent weeknight. My dinner companion and I waited an hour and 20 minutes to be seated ? one hour longer than the hostess said it would take. When a pair of tables for two sat empty for a couple minutes, I finally asked if we?d be seated soon. The hostess said she was ?deciding whether to seat us.? Hmmm. The food, as usual, was great.
 
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