The year in review and Peter Peter Portland Eater’s Eating Portland, ME Awards 2016

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The Year in Review

It’s been an exciting year here at Peterpeterportlandeater Enterprises. A lot has happened in my fourth year as a blogger, and though it’s been a lot of work, I’m thankful that people seem to be reading my thoughts about Portland food. This year has brought many interesting happenings, not the least of which was starting as a blogger here at BDN. It’s been an honor and a privilege to be able to add this to my blogging resume the past few months, but so much has happened on my personal blog at Peterpeterportlandeater.com that I though it was worth an annual recap.

Most importantly this year, I’ve been able to review more restaurants than ever. So far, my blog here at BDN has focused primarily on re-reviewing restaurants I’ve previously reviewed on my personal blog, but I’ve also had the opportunity to review lots of new and new-to-me restaurants on that blog too, including a few media and special invite events. At this point, I’m somewhere around 150 reviews in the archives, so go ahead and take a look at what I thought about your favorite place. In addition, this year I had the chance to visit more out of town – but still Maine based – locales, hitting a few southern Maine establishments that I really enjoyed.

But it wasn’t all restaurant reviews this year. I got to tour Fork Food Lab this summer while they were still under construction and report what they were up to. If you don’t know what they’re about, check them out on my other blog. I’ve been there since they’ve completed the build and they’re definitely following through on their mission of community centered innovation. They’ve got some of the best and brightest food minds working out of their building. Plus, they have food for sale from those individuals and regularly hold events if you want to have some food fun at a reasonable cost.

This year, I also had the amazing opportunity to interact a bit with some stars of food related media. I was able to interview – via email – ABC meteorologist and Dancing with the Stars alum Ginger Zee about her show “Food Forecast” since the first episode was about Maine lobster. In helping promote the show “State Plate”, which also had an episode about Maine, American Idol winner and show host Taylor Hicks re-Tweeted me. I also held my first giveaway, dishing out a pair of free tickets to see Anthony Bourdain to a lucky winner. The show was quite entertaining, so stay tuned for more giveaways in the future as they become available.

The most recent notable of which I’m incredibly proud, is that my February review of Maine Craft Distilling was used in the book “The New Single Malt Whiskey” which was released in October. I’m happy to say that I have a full page and a bio in there, so if you like whiskey, you should definitely order it from Amazon and check out my review. At over 600 pages, it’s got tons of great information about whiskey from some of the foremost experts in the game.

Everything I referenced above can be seen at Peterpeterportlandeater.com. But what’s in store for the coming year? More of everything! More reviews, more surprises, and more of me. I’ll be venturing out to taste more food and taking opportunities to bring you local information as much as I possibly can. But first, check out my biggest blog post of the year – my annual awards to honor the best food I’ve had in the last 12 months. Just click on the link here to continue reading: https://peterpeterportlandeater.com/2016/12/31/peter-peter-portland-eaters-eating-portland-me-awards-2016/

Stay hungry.

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Peter Blanchette

About Peter Blanchette

Peter Peter Portland Eater grew up in Lewiston, Maine and graduated from the University of Maine in Orono with a degree in English. After college, he left the state to work in Massachusetts, but the allure of a more comfortable life in his home state brought him back after eight years. Upon his return and after meeting his now wife – Mrs. Portlandeater, he slowly integrated himself into the Portland food scene by trying as many restaurants as he could afford. That and a desire to write for others again led him to start Peterpeterportlandeater.com where he reviews restaurants and blogs about whatever Portland/Maine food topics he finds interesting.