Growing from 15 restaurants, 9 wineries and 1 brewery, and about 350 attendees in 1988; Taste of the Nation now has over 70 participating restaurants, 50 wineries and breweries, and over 1000 attendees. It is the best of Portland in food and drink certainly, but it is also the best of Portland in spirit, good will, and generosity.
Last night was the 20th anniversary of this annual event to “Eat, Drink, and End Childhood Hunger,” and Portlanders, restaurants, and wineries and breweries were out at the Convention Center in Full Force. We ate, we drank, and then we ate some more. For the tasty tidbits and delectable drinks were good and plentiful, and some just required going back for seconds and even thirds. But we will get to that part later.
For the important thing to remember is that this is in almost complete volunteer effort with 100% of ticket sales going directly towards regional and local beneficiaries that work to end hunger, which is a very real and sadly very large problem in our region and elsewhere in our state and nation. This year’s beneficiaries included:
*St. Vincent de Paul Food Recovery Program which last year helped serve over 62,000 meals to needy members of our community
Klamath-Lake Counties Food Bank in southern Oregon who distributed over 1.1 million pounds of food to over 10,000 people last year alone.
*Portland’s Sisters of the Road who’s café serves 400 low-cost hot and nutritious meals per day
*The Oregon Food Bank who last year alone distributed 755,000 emergency food boxes to over 80,000 people, feeding at least 72,000 children.
*Oregon Hunger Relief Task Force who successfully work for policies and programs that address hunger issues such as expanding Oregon’s food stamp programs and increasing summer food programs for children.
Frankly, noting the causes, the food becomes secondary. We wouldn’t care if they were serving chipped beef on toast and apple juice.
However as you can imagine with this many restaurants involved – this food was incredible, and bountiful, with far more variety than we could ever list in full here. Certain restaurants though, really pulled out all the stops to showcase their talents and good ingredients, and it is always nice meeting the chefs and owners. We tried, oh we tried to hit them all but our gullet and our attention just couldn’t take it all in. Some highlights of what we did manage to eat:
Andina was there with pretty little Causitas – choice of either purple or yellow potatoes served in tender pressed cake like balls and served with either smoked fish or heats of palm and piqullo peppers. Oh yeah, and they also had some of their famous fresh fish cebiche.
Bay House from Lincoln City did an outstanding appetizer of pickled oysters on the half shell with mango gelee and Aleppo tempura.
Carafe Bistro made some incredible and rich braised pork cheeks with lentils and sauce verte.
Fenouil was all about beignets serving a lobster version with a pastis aioli and Armagnac beignets with prune crème anglais.
Hurley’s made a really killer leek flan with Oregon wild mushroom sauce and house made potato chips with black truffle oil.
Kenny and Zuke served their house-cured pastrami as minature sandwiches, and let me tell you, it’s the real deal ladies and gents. Those boys know pastrami. They also had samples of pickles, rugelah, and excellent bagels from Touch of Grace Bakery.
La Calaca Comelona from SE Belmont street served a blackberry mole on homemade tortillas. Delicious.
Lauro proved that something as simple as grilled shrimp and chorizo sausage skewers can be sublime when handled with care.
Tommy Habetz from Meriwether’s was there – showing off his new baby and serving some tasty grilled flatbread sandwiches.
Paley’s Place went all out serving a duck breast with fennel and preserved orange on crostini, and a spicy grilled lamb hearts, potato, and argula salad.
Saucebox served large oyster shooters tasting of clean mineral sea served with a bracing and spicy hot kimchee gelee. It’s a combination I would have never thought of, but was something I would certainly eat again given the chance
Simpatica made Goetta (a tasty regional meat treat specialty from my home state of Ohio) on buttermilk biscuits with chow-chow, and squid stuffed with beef cheeks. Both were amazing.
And who was it with the pea tip panna cotta with lump crab and lemon foam? Do tell, because that was the stuff food dreams are made of.
I had no room for dessert by then, nor did I partake in the wine but it all looked so very, very good.
There is something quite ironic about so much food being served at an event to help end hunger. I’m not the first to bring this up, nor will I be the last. That said, the event does raise lots of money, the money goes directly to good causes, and it does raise awareness for an ongoing problem in our region. I think we can all toast to that.
It’s not easy to remember drink and food orders for 8 people. I recommend using a pen and paper.
Love it.
That was Genoa, but I thought it was asparagus panna cotta…either way it was seriously delicious.
My faves:
Bay 13 – ahi poke with crispy potato cucumber salad and seaweed
Bread and Ink Cafe – waffle hot fudge sundae (really good, hot Belgian waffles)
Carafe – braised pork cheeks on lentils (one of the best dishes of the night)
DePaula Confections – variety of great chocolates
Hurley’s – leek flan with wild mushroom sauce and black truffle oil potato chips (one of the best dishes of the night)
Nostrana – Nancy’s yogurt panna cotta with rhubarb sauce (I don’t care for Nancy’s yogurt, but this creation was sweet and tangy and rich and very tasty)
Roux – little coconut tarts (they had other stuff I did not try, but these little tarts were fabulous! – one of the best desserts of the night)
Simpatica – goetta, squid stuffed with beef cheeks (both were really delicious)
Timberline Lodge – doug fir and pinot noir granita (they had it last year too, but I still like it – so refreshing and palate cleansing)
Ah, Jill-O, the mystery panna cotta solved. Merci, and thanks for adding the additional items. By the end of the first hour my head was spinning.
Is there such a thing as a food hangover?
Ditto on the coconut tart from Roux as well as Genoa’s Dungeoness crab/asparagus panna cotta number, the latter being the only item for which I felt compelled to go back for seconds.
Another winner was the fresh greens with duck, topped with a homemade fig newton of sorts. Okay, this was so much better than it sounds…imagine a buttery, crispy/chewy cookie filled with really excellent dried, sweet figs. In my bliss-enduced haze, I failed to take note of whose offering this was. Anyone?
The event was a lot of fun but the music was too loud! It was hard to talk about the food inside the ballroom. Otherwise, the food was great and the portions were very large.
Pascal Sauton’s pork cheeks with lentils ran out before I could get one. I spent time talking to extraMSG and Ken Gordon about recent threads on this website, which was a lot of fun. I must agree with CBF, those guys know how to make pastrami! (thanks for the huge samples!)
Dundee Bistro also did a pea-tip panna cotta, topped with applewood smoked bacon, that was also quite tasty.
The duck confit salad with date newtons (I took special note of that cookie) was from Three Degrees at the Riverplace Hotel, according to the program.
Dundee Bistro also served insanely addictive chocolate truffles stuffed with bacon and hazelnuts! wow!
I thought that those bacon truffles were waaay too salty…I could not eat mine. But hey, lots of other stuff out there, something to please everyone.
Reva: Thanks for the 411 on the duck salad/Newton dish. Was it date? It seemed figgy to me.
Shoot, who knew peas had tips? (I supposed they’re referring to the tips of the pods rather than the peas themselves.) But yeah, that was another fine savory panna cotta.
Roy: If you dug those bacon truffles, check out the ones made by Xocolatl de David – available at Foster and Dobbs, Steve’s Cheese and a few other places around town, I think. They will make you shudder…in a good way.
It was date, yeah, not fig.
Love the shot of the EVO Grille grilling all the skewers!!! Love Oregon based products!!!
I’m glad you all had such a great time….it’s killing me to read about all the food comments…next year, I must schedule more time for eating, less time running around! Keep those comments coming. We’re taking the summer off, but we’ll be back in the fall to plan for our big 21st birthday bash next April. Mark your calendars for Taste of the Nation Portland–April 28th, 2008! We’re always looking for some generous folks to help plan the event. Drop us an e-mail if you’re interested!
Thanks to all for your support! I’ll post final numbers of $$ raised when we’re all settled…
Gina Fleschner
Chairwoman, Taste of the Nation Portland
info@portlandtaste.org