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Out of Town: Portland, Maine – Foodelicious Xmas

Sunday, December 27th, 2009

• Awesome Online Portland, ME Visual Food Map: http://www.portlandfoodmap.com/

Novare Res: Great Bier Café w/ Artisan Cheese Plates – We want this in our neighborhood!

• Breakfast: Hot Suppa! – Best Corned Beef Hash Ever!

• Cookbook Bookstore: Rabelais

Over the holidays we headed home to Maine. This gave us the chance to checkout Portland’s foodie claims that attracted our attention in this years Bon Appetit article “Portland, Maine–America’s Foodiest Small Town.” Portland has certainly changed since the last time we visited five years ago with much more than your traditional seafood spots and pubs. There are more local breweries and bakeries, quaint & kitschy cafes that highlight modern takes on comfort food, and creative fine-dining with daily designed menus offering creative interpretations of regional favorites. We also went to a wonderful bier café with a beer list of more than 200 beers along with Maine made Meed as well as featuring great mix and match artisan cheese plates.

The Portland Food Map: This is awesome. It is a visual guide to food and drink in Portland separated by category such as kind of food, bakery, and specialty food shops and so on. When you click on the restaurant name it shows you a rating number as well as a list of the reviews about the restaurant. We are looking forward to every town having one of these.

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Drinking in the Season

Sunday, December 6th, 2009

We at BiTF appreciate a good blog, especially when it concerns tasty beverages.  This blog not only appeals to our search for new tastes, but also to our aesthetic sensibilities.  With its faux polaroid/recipe card layout, one has the ability to experience a blog in a different (to us) and refreshing way, even if it solely aggregates the work of our bloggy brethren. We invite you to check out Liqurious.

www.Liqurious.com

Along these same lines, we finally got our hands on a beer we’ve been jonesing to try.  The beer is a Rauchbier, made with malted barley that has been dried over an open flame.  We tried the Schlenkerla version, which seems to be the most available brand.  According to Wikipedia, there are a few US microbreweries that make rauchbiers, along with some interesting international varieties including a Japanese beer named after the smokescreens used by ninjas.  But, you certainly don’t need to be a ninja to enjoy this style of beer.  As we love some BBQ smoke in most of our food, this beer hit just the right spot.  Truly, if you were craving bacon and beer, this would satisfy both.  Not only is the flavor in the beverage, but it will carry over to any food that you happen to be eating.  Feeling too lazy to get out the grill?  Grab a few rauchbiers and take a sip before each bite, it’s that easy.  I look forward to pairing this with an actual smokey meal to fully enjoy the experience.

www.Schlenkerla.de

Cheap Homemade Hard Cider

Sunday, November 8th, 2009

Came across a post at Serious Eats and I couldn’t resist giving it a try.  Basically, you take a gallon of Apple Cider from Whole Foods ($7.00), put some cider yeast in it and wait.  I’ll let you know how it turns out in a couple of weeks.

The Big Dipa Double IPA

Sunday, October 18th, 2009

Here at Blame it on the Food, we are fans of the India Pale Ale (IPA).  An IPA is a higher alcohol content, hop flavored beer that originally became popular with the East India Trading Company and its customers in India.  A double IPA often has a stronger hop flavor and an even higher alcohol content.  Since we’ve tried most, this unfamiliar bottle from a Bay Area brewer struck our fancy at the local Whole Foods.  It ended up being a good buy, being a double IPA that the three of us could easily enjoy for an evening.  This means that while it had a hop flavor, it was somewhat muted, making the beer smoother and more palatable to non-bitter-lovers.  Two of us certainly thought it could use a bit more punch in flavor, but weren’t complaining as we quickly finished off the bottle.

http://bigbluefrog.com/

Tornado? No, Toronado: Lower Haight, SF

Friday, September 18th, 2009

Toronado, like the Oldsmobile it’s named after, sports a Unitized Power Package.  As GM used the UPP to fit both a transmission and engine into a conventional engine bay, Toronado fits an outstanding draught beer selection into the same space where a normal bar would serve at most five draughts.  Let me tell you that this is not a selection of Budweiser, Miller, and Coors products.  Toronado offers some of the finest brews from all over the world.  On our most recent visit we enjoyed some Belgians (Duvel Green, Affligem Trippel), and a Californian (Russian River, Pliny the Elder).  An excellent feature of Toronado is the ability (at slow times) to order a sausage from Rosamunde Sausage Grill next door.  Once you’ve ordered, you can go grab a beer and wait for the signature wall-pound that signals the readiness of your food.  We’ll be sure to get a proper post about Rosamunde the next time we’re in the Lower Haight, but it was too busy at Toronado to sit and eat.  Next time delicious sausage, next time.

www.Toronado.com

Lesley: Go to Toronado for the BEER!  I love Belgian Style Ales and they seem to have them all.  You can get a sausage and pickle from next door and bring it over to drink with this unbelievable selection of brews.