Feast only ended on Sunday and I’m already having serious withdrawals and planning for next year.
For those of you unfamiliar with Feast, it is an event that takes place for four days every September (this year it celebrated its 5th birthday). It’s a food and drink festival presented by the wonderful people at Bon Appetit magazine that takes place in various locations throughout downtown Portland.
Chefs and artisans from the Portland area and around the country come together for four days to fill you up with some of the most incredible food you will ever eat. When I say fill you up, I’m not kidding. You will eat more than you think and you’ll probably be full for at least a week after.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you 🙂
This year they partnered with Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon, working to end childhood hunger.
Over the four days (Thursday-Sunday), there are more events than you can ever imagine. They have five main events: Sandwich Invitational, Grand Tasting, Night Market, OMG! Smoked, and a Brunch Village. There are also a wide variety of fun-size events, hands-on classes, drink tank and a dinner series. If I had all the money and time in the world, I would have found a way to get to all of them. They looked incredible.
This was the first year I got tickets and I went to the Night Market on Friday night and Grand Tasting on Saturday afternoon.
I had so. much. fun!
I got two tickets to each event, bringing my friend Taylor with me on Friday and my sister with me on Saturday. Friends don’t let friends Feast alone 😉
I loved the Night Market. It was Latin-themed and I had some of the most incredible bites of food I’ve ever had. Different kinds of tacos, fancy candy, arancini, salmon, chicken wings, the best corn on the cob I’ve ever had, wine, tequila, the list goes on.
There was fun Latin music, lots of lights and lines for every vendor. Towards the end of the night, I was so full I wanted to stop eating. But Taylor made me keep going. She’s the kind of friend you want in your life!
My favourite bite of the night were these cones from Jose Chesa (owner of Ataula, Chesa and 180). I’ve loved his food forever and recommend his restaurants to anyone that comes to town. These cones need to be put on the menus now. They were filled with duck, avocado, sweet potatoes, plantains and a pimento-garlic salt. If I could have sat there all night eating them, I would have!
If I’m totally honest, I was still full from all the Night Market fun when my sister and I went to Grand Tasting on Saturday. But like any good foodie, I put on my big girl pants and ate my way through the offerings there.
Grand Tasting is fun! It’s like a who’s who and what’s what of all the cool things going on in the culinary world throughout the country. Local and national vendors fill Pioneer Courthouse Square with stalls filled with all kinds of food and drink.
Because I’d heard so many good things about WizBangBar’s chocolate tacolate, that was obviously our first stop. Even though it was cold and rainy, my sister and I couldn’t not eat ice cream that looks like a taco.
It was delicious. Duh.
We bobbed and weaved our way through the other vendors, eating plates of cheese, pizza, baked goods from Guittard and a local bakery, drinking coffee and grabbing samples of things. A honey company was there and they were giving away lots of cool honey related stuff. We came home with a pretty impressive haul 😉
I wish I’d been able to go to more of the events. Whenever I logged onto instagram or looked at various other social media sites I saw so many pictures of all of the food and fun people were partaking in.
I’m already looking forward to next year! I’ll take the next 350+ days to prepare my body for all the feasting I’ll be doing!
