When we decided to go to Portland it just so happened that the food festival, Bite of Oregon, was happening at the same time.
I was very excited about this. I love food. Portland has good food. This was going to be good.
Right along the river, right across the street from our hotel, was the festival grounds. Fenced off on a grassy dirt area, 20-30 vendors were all set up selling bite-sized foods for goers to try.
Wanting all the food, we got tickets for the Chef’s table. Some of the top chef’s in Oregon has planned small dishes and of the 8 we could try five. It was fantastic. I have no idea anymore what I tried, but it was good.
The one problem with the festival though was during the day it was horribly hot. To the point of uncomfortable while trying to eat food. And to make matters worse there were few places to go that had shade. There were so many people.
I’m being picky, obviously, but it just wasn’t what I imagined. It felt, to me, like Folk on the Rocks, without the music. Granted the entry fee was only $6, so the barrier to entry was quite low, I for some reason thought it would be a bit more classy.
What I wish we had done more of was watching the demonstrations. They only had one stage and the demos were so spaced out over the three days, it would have been hard to seem more of them. And I wanted to see the rest of Portland. We did see a fun demonstration on Street Tacos. The demo, the banter, the teaching, was what I was looking for out of the festival, almost more so than the food. Clearly I want to go to a food conference and not just a festival.
All in all, it was neat and I’m glad I experienced it. I did eat a lot of good food.