Portland Food Map

Barkada is opening for business on Saturday May 30th. The new Filipino🇵🇭 fast casual restaurant is located at 425 Fore Street in the space formerly occupied by Paper Tiger. It will be open Tuesday through Sunday, 11 am – 9 pm and until 10 pm on Fridays and Saturdays.

Chefs Nicole and Ben Bowers and business partners Margaret and Luka Dow are serving a menu house designed bowls like the Spicy Baddie shown above as well as a Build Your Own option where customers select a base of grain or greens, a protein, toppings and sauce. Lumpia rolls and a noodle dish called pancit are available as sides. In addition to soft drinks Barkada also serves an ube pina colada slush, and Singha, Tsingtao and Sapporo beer.

Nicole and Ben Bowers are the chefs for Barkada. Nicole Bowers is originally from the Philippines. She and Ben Bowers met while attending the Institute of Culinary Education in NY. They’ve worked in Michelin-starred restaurants including for Daniel Boulud. Prior to moving to Maine they worked as private chefs in Florida. The Dows also have a background in the hospitality industry including operating a cafe in Boston and in food distribution.

Barkada initially launched as a food truck late last June.

Ladyfish opened for business on Wednesday. The new restaurant has been launched in former Bar Futo space on Fore Street by the owners of Mr. Tuna. It’s a pop-up restaurant that will be in operation May through October. Reservations are available on OpenTable.

The kitchen is being headlined by chef Christine Lau. The menu (see below) includes dishes like steamed buns with uni butter, crispy noodles alle vongole, tuna carpaccio, fragrant eggplant dip, and key lime hand pies for dessert. The bar menu includes cocktails like the South End and North Country drinks shown above, wine, beer, vermouth and nonalcoholic beverages.

Lau was the executive chef at Kimika which was a Beard Awards semifinalists for Best New Restaurant in 2022. Her press accolades include an Eater NYC Best Dishes of 2020 nod, Condé Nast Traveler’s 2021 Hot List for Best New Restaurants, and Food & Wine magazine’s Best Bites of 2021.

Jordan and Marisa Rubin launched the Mr. Tuna food cart in 2017 and the Mr. Tuna restaurant on Middle Street in 2024. With partners Cyle Reynolds and Sasha Brouillard the Rubins launched Crispy G*i on Exchange Street in 2021. Last year Rubin was named to the 2025 class of Best New Chefs by Food & Wine magazine.

Ladyfish is located at 425 Fore Street and will be open daily, 5 – 10 pm.

Fresh Approach Meat Market in Portland's West End is closing after 34 years in business.

It is with deep regret and broken hearts
We must announce that after 34 years in business on Bracket Street we will be closing Fresh Approach
As many of you are aware our ability to take food stamps at our store was taken away from us about 1 year ago. Unfortunately an employee sold dish soap and tissues to an undercover USDA agent. Although we know this was wrong and it never should have happened our license was suspended for 6 months and we received a hefty fine. It took us 11 months to get our license back - which was a very big part of our business. We established a good wholesale business to local restaurants and caterers but because of so many restaurants closing our sales have gone down. With the current economy and cost of doing business is more than we can overcome we will be liquidating our inventory effective immediately.
We will remain open until everything is sold.

With that being said we want to sincerely thank all of you for supporting us for the last 34 years. We have made so many friends and have watched children grow up to adults. Each and every one of you are special to us and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts

Thank you also to our employees for hanging in there with us - You are the best!

Chet and Peggy-Fresh Approach