Portland Spoke – The Official Blog of Travel Portland

Heading into its 29th year, Portland’s Cinco de Mayo Fiesta (May 3-5) kicks off a summer of celebration in Waterfront Park, downtown’s stretch of green space along the Willamette River that’s home to concerts, festivals and events of all kinds. This three-day fiesta, presented by the Portland Guadalajara Sister City Association, celebrates Mexican-American culture with music, dance, carnival rides, lucha libre wrestling and plenty of authentic food.

Happily, Portland enjoys great Mexican food year-round (and all over town) tucked, folded and wrapped into a variety of burritos. Here are five favorites you can enjoy anytime: (more…)

Portland loves food. And even in this perpetually dining-obsessed city, this month is something special.

Photo by Greg Robeson, courtesy of Feast Portland

The countdown is on to Portland’s first international food festival, Feast Portland, Sept. 20-23. The fest is made up of many different events (tastings, dinners, lectures, classes) — several of which are already sold out. But, whether you’re feeling peckish (Homemade Crackers and Chèvre), indulgent (High Comfort), or just want to try it all (Oregon Bounty Grand Tasting) — now’s the time to satisfy your craving and buy your tickets.

That last event, the Oregon Bounty Grand Tasting, is shaping up to be the must-see (and taste) of the festival. In addition to samples from dozens of Oregon wineries, breweries and culinary artisans (think Salt & Straw, Xocolatl de David, Hot Lips Soda), this two-day affair in downtown’s Pioneer Courthouse Square will also feature cooking demonstrations from celebrated chefs like Chris Cosentino (Incanto – SF), April Bloomfield (Spotted Pig – NYC) and Amanda Freitag (Food Network, Cooking Channel). 

Photo courtesy of Feast Portland

The culinary community is so excited about Feast that they’re actually celebrating it all month long — the Appetizing Oregon promotion, available at 35 Portland restaurants through Sept. 30 — offers diners $10 small plates featuring Oregon ingredients. The options range from Oregon Albacore Tataki at Biwa to the Feast Rioja Board with Chorizo Rioja, Manchego, Star Gazer Farm Peppers, housemade Oregon stone fruit preserves, and local crusty bread at Olympic Provisions.

There’s never been a better time to explore the culinary offerings of Portland and the state. Dig in!

Over the last few years, as the level of creativity cooked up by local chefs has garnered increasing national attention, Portland’s inventive food scene has come to a boil. Celebrating Oregon’s bountiful ingredients, as well as the masterminds who work with them, Feast Portland (Sept. 20-23) not only highlights local foodie talent, but infuses the city with some of the coolest kitchen personas from around the country. Presented by Bon Appétit, this buffet of James Beard Award-winning talent will pack Stumptown full of dinners, demos, classes and tastings.

Main events at the belt-busting festival include Thursday’s Sandwich Invitational (a delectable beer-paired contest featuring entries from Bunk Sandwiches, Podnah’s Pit BBQ and Kenny & Zuke’s, among others) in downtown’s Director Park; Friday’s Feast Portland Night Market (a Southeast-Asian-style celebration of street food with contributors from Portland, Austin, NYC and London) at the Ecotrust Building; and the Oregon Bounty Grand Tasting (with demonstrations by Naomi Pomeroy from Beast, Paul Qui of Austin’s Uchiko, and many others) in Pioneer Courthouse Square Friday and Saturday.

Packages with passes to the entire Feast, as well as individual event tickets, are available for purchase online now. Space is limited, and while Feast may never have too many cooks in its kitchen, there’s only so much room for discerning diners.

Photo courtesy of Portland Walking Tours

Long before food cart fever spread all over town, Portland already had a reputation of being daring when it comes to dining. Now, with curbside innovation rolling into almost every spare parking lot, the head spins at the edible options available. With well over 400 mobile eateries within city limits, you’ll a need a guide to undertake a culinary adventure this vast — luckily, Portland has two such tours.

Brett Burmeister has been chronicling the city’s street eats since 2008, and offers daily lunchtime tours by appointment through Food Carts Portland. Covering the history of the carts, the economic and political conditions that helped them thrive, and, of course, some tasty samples, the tour is full of stories and local flavor.

Meanwhile, Portland Walking Tours’ Flavor Street boasts the inside scoop on everything from savory pies to pork sandwiches, with resident experts sharing their secrets Wednesday through Saturday at 1 p.m. Walk-ups are welcome for the two-hour tour that strolls about a mile, but group size is limited, so advance tickets are recommended. Both tours begin downtown, an ideal starting point for visitors looking to get a taste of some of the most exciting, innovative eats on Portland’s streets.

Bunk takes Gotham: Tommy Habetz of Bunk Sandwiches.

The week before last was a big one for local chefs, who gathered in New York City for the May 21 launch party for Feast Portland, the much-anticipated food and drink festival that will take place Sept. 20-23 in downtown Portland.

New York media, chefs and tastemakers descended upon the party, which highlighted Oregon beer, wine and spirits, plus samplings from Olympic Provisions, Bunk Sandwiches (the oxtail sandwich was a particular favorite), Beast, Departure, Paley’s Place and others. Here’s a nice recap of the event from Bon Appetit.

Later in the week, two other culinary standard-bearers — both of whom will also be participants in Feast – led hands-on, Portland-focused events for travel writers and meeting planners. In Chicago, Jenn Louis of Lincoln (one of Food & Wine‘s Best New Chefs of 2012) led a hands-on cooking demonstration. And in DC, Mark Bitterman (owner of The Meadow and author of the James Beard Award-winning Salted) piqued attendees’ taste buds with samplings of artisan-made finishing salts.

Portland Dining Month is back for its third year! Almost 70 area restaurants are featuring $25 three-course dinners every day of the week in June.  Enjoy shrimp cocktail fritters at Besaw’s, tajarin pasta with truffle butter at Tabla, or stout cake with toffee and spiced apples at Aviary. A list of participating restaurants and their menus is available at www.PortlandDiningMonth.com.

You can also take the guesswork out of where to go and enter to win dinner for a year by spinning the Wheel of Deliciousness at www.facebook.com/DowntownPortland.

Hungry yet? I thought so. Now, go out and there and EAT!

Foodies, mark your calendars: tickets for the first annual Feast Portland food festival go on sale on Tuesday, May 22 at 6 a.m. Pacific time. Find them at www.feastportland.com. That day, you’ll see the full schedule of events (Sept. 20-23, 2012) and guest chef announcements, and be able to pick and choose whether you’ll be going for a full conference pass or individual events.

If you’re traveling to Portland for the festival, the full pass will give you the ultimate Portland food experience. And, keep an eye out for a special Portland Perks hotel package that will run during those dates. If you travel to eat, this is a national experience not to miss. See you at Feast Portland!

Visitors need all the help they can get navigating the more than 600 registered food carts dishing out all sorts of tasty vittles in Portland. Fortunately, the dedicated folks at FoodCartsPortland.com (who have been diligently tracking and cataloging the carts since 2007) have introduced an iPhone app that’s sure to help.

The 99-cent Food Carts Portland Mobile app allows users to search by vendor location, type of cuisine or hours and create a step-by-step route to the food carts. It also lists all of the food cart pods — areas where several carts congregate permanently — and profiles the carts with photos, sample menus and contact information.

Visitors without iPhones can still benefit from the exhaustive catalog at FoodCartsPortland.com’s mobile website, though they will miss out on the mapping features.

Bert scans the racks at Lodekka, the double-decker-bus-turned-dress-shop on North Williams.

Spurred by an article in the new Travel Portland magazine, Bert and I spent a recent afternoon on North Williams Avenue, a vibrant district of retailers and restaurants — and one of the newer additions to Portland’s rich tapestry of neighborhoods.

Our first stop was Lodekka, a vintage dress shop that’s housed inside a double-decker bus. The rest of the afternoon was similarly stacked with surprises: In the span of just two blocks, we perused the hand-made handbags at Queen Bee Creations; gawked at the letterpress at Lark Press; shared a dozen happy-hour oysters at EaT (hey, I had earned a few points by then); and enjoyed a fine meal at James Beard Award-nominated Lincoln Restaurant.

On tap for our next visit to North Williams: a stop at BikeBar, the latest venture from Hopworks Urban Brewery.

Hungry Heart Cupcakes (photo by Viva Barrows, bePortland)

Last Saturday, I — along with 3,000 other folks — indulged in the annual Portland food cart festival known as Eat Mobile. Three thousand people + 52 carts = lots of lines. But each wait was rewarded with a delicious sample. I focused on trying out new-to-me carts and came away with several favorites:

Fuego de Lotus

This cart served up Venezuelan arepas (corn cakes) with green chili chicken or pork belly in a spicy red chili maple sauce. Both were delicious, but the pork belly ranked as one of the best things I’ve eaten in recent memory. Besides discovering a new food, I found out that this cart is within walking distance of my house … and then I ate lunch there on Sunday.

PDX 671

The samples could have been bigger, but my first little tastes of Guamanian food convinced me that I’ll be back for more! Luckily, this cart — which took home the Eat Mobile judges’ award — is also at the D-Street Noshery on Southeast Division, right next to Fuego De Lotus.

Hungry Heart Cupcakes

Anyone who thinks cupcakes are a trend that’s run its course needs to try a “Dark and Dusty”: dark chocolate and cacao nib cake topped with dulce de leche frosting and Maldon sea salt. (more…)