Food Porn From Maine's Harvest On The Harbor

From Oct. 23 to Oct. 26, Portland, Maine, hosted the Harvest on the Harbor event, Maine's premier food and wine festival. This was the festival's sixth year, and it's easy to see why it has become an annual production. When tickets to each of the individual events during the festival go on sale, most sell out immediately, within 10 minutes or less of being available! The Daily Meal was lucky enough to snag some tickets courtesy of the Maine Convention and Visitors Bureau, and we had a great time.

Click here to see the Food Porn From Maine's Harvest on the Harbor (Slideshow)

The festival is held over the course of four days at the end of October every year. This year it ran from Wednesday, Oct. 23 through Saturday, Oct. 26. All of the events are held on the waterfront at the Ocean Gateway Pier. It's a beautiful setting, especially in the fall with all of the leaves displaying their bright, changing colors.

This year, the Daily Meal attended three of the festival's events: the Lobster Chef of the Year competition, the International Maine event, and Top of the Crop: Maine's Best Farm-to-Table Restaurant. During the lobster competition, we got to watch four of Maine's top chefs battle it out for the title with unique and inventive dishes, all using Maine lobster as the focal point. At the International Maine event, we sampled international dishes from local restaurants of varying worldly cuisines including Mexican, Italian, Irish, Vietnamese, Japanese, and Greek. And at the Farm-to-Table event, we helped choose from three of Maine's standout chefs based on their use of local farm-to-table ingredients, their cooking philosophy, and, of course, the taste and presentation of their dishes.

Each of the events was unique and delicious in its own way. Plus, all of the courses at the competition events were accompanied by wine pairings, and the International Maine event hosted a variety of local beers, wines, and gin and rum cocktails, so there were plenty of beverages, too! To top it off, local bands played live music to accompany the events, which really added to the fun and ambience of the festival.

During our time at the festival, we ate, drank, and took pictures of everything! Click through our slideshow to see photos of the festival and, of course, the delicious food we devoured.