Dave and I packed suitcases and drove thirty minutes to check-into a downtown Portland hotel. Vacationing in your own town? We are not crazy - we have tickets to several events during Feast Portland - and knew we would be out late, up early and tasting too many adult beverages to drive home. Our hotel is perfectly located so can walk to every event we are attending. We are on foot this weekend.
Portland is a very pretty city, with lots of public art and is very walkable.
This evening we attended the Night Market, presented by USA Pears. The events all weekend are to raise money to fight childhood hunger in Oregon.
This event consisted of over 50 booths - restaurants serving a sample of one dish, brewers, vineyards, distillers, ranchers and farmers. Sold-out months ago, after getting inside the "night market" everything was included in your ticket price. We went from booth to booth, tent to tent, sampling what looked good to us. It was really fun and we met a lot of fun people, and saw a lot of famous (in the food world) people.
Grilled beef and pickled pear lettuce wrap by Sarah Pliner of Aviary (Portland, Oregon)
Ribeye + Kimchee with Rice Grits from Hugh Acheson of The National (Athens, Georgia)
Patrons grab a wine glass at the entrance gate and use it all night. The food samples were served on teeny bamboo plates with bamboo forks.You may see a trend of beef dishes here. So many of the restaurants were serving pork and shellfish! It's not like I didn't get enough to eat though - don't worry.
Beef Noodle soup with Kimchee from Johanna Ware of Smallwares, Portland, Oregon
Our very own celebrity chef - Andy Ricker of Pok Pok - served shellfish tonight.DT claims it was most excellent.
Another famous Portland chef is Jami Curl of Quin chocolate shop. Tonight Quin offered Caramelized Honey Seafoam with Chocolate, Marshmallow and Smoked Cocoa Salt(using salt from Oregon's own Jacobsen Sea Salt).
The genius of the night market was the man with the longest line - Aaron Franklin of Franklin Barbeque in Austin, Texas:
Though we have been to many brisket places in Texas - we have even spent a day in Lockhart sampling - nothing can compare to Aaron Franklin's brisket made with Wagyu cattle. It literally melts in your mouth. But Franklin sticks to one Texas barbeque tradition - his brisket came with a chunk of Wonder bread.We had a lovely time and as we exited the night market, the friendly people from USA Pears put us in a photo book and snapped our photo - pear-in-hand:
Pears to usUntil my next update, I remain, your beefy correspondent.