I was lucky enough to hit the road for a road trip with some of my dearest food lover lady friends to
Portland, Oregon for a three-day weekend of absolute gluttony this fall. We planned our trip around
Portland’s Feast, a multi-day event celebrating Oregon's bounty and the
chefs and artisans who do some pretty amazing things with it with tastings,
dinners, classes and seminars.
We bought tickets for the Oregon Grand Bounty Tasting. There
were two days of Grand Bounty tasting events (we went for the Friday function)
taking place right in the centre of Portland in Pioneer Square. It was like the
main city square was transformed into a massive cocktail party. This event is
the perfect way to explore creative and delicious food, fantastic wine and
delicious craft beer. This event is soooo well organized and from an outside
perspective seemed to flow seamlessly. Despite the event being extremely busy,
line ups were rare, bites and sips were plentiful and generous and the options
offered represented a wide variety of food and drink guaranteed to please any
palate. And to make things even more awesome, the money raised goes to hunger
charities in Oregon.
Some of my favourite
bites were:
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| USA Pears Pop Up; with three courses from Chef Ben Bettinger of Laurelhurst Market. First bite of the day: Grilled albacore tuna, confit pear, pear and salsa verde, dehydrated pear, salted hazelnuts |
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| Dessert course from USA Pears pop up; Roasted Honey Panna Cotta, brandy roasted pears, pear wood smoked bacon |
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| From Red Wagon Creamery |
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| From Les Caves Bier and Kitchen; Lamb BLT |
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| From Whole Foods; as someone who isn't a huge cheese gal....holy moly this was perfection |
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| Beautiful tomatoes as a vessel from Jacobson's salt (in a variety of flavours) |
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| From Olympic Provisions; back - Pork Frank with sweet corn and oregon bay shrimp |
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| Cacao, serving Salt and Straw olive oil ice cream topped with hot drinking chocolate and crunchy cacao nibs |
Noteworthy and very memorable beverages (no photos sorry!)
Bridgeport Brewery
Gilgamesh Brewing
Finnriver Pear Cider
Stumptown Coffee Roasters Iced Coffee
