Feast Portland 2014: USA Pears Night Market
In case you missed my last post, this past weekend, I was a photographer for Feast, Portland’s biggest food and drink festival. Famous chefs from around the country join forces with Portland’s local culinary talent to cook for crowds and host classes and dinners for an action-packed four days. Each night, there’s a marquee event that ranges from a sandwich making competition to a black-tie affair at one of Portland’s ritziest hotels.
My favorite of the events, however, has always been the Night Market. I mean, just last year, I got to meet one of my baking heroes, Christina Tosi of Momofuku Milk Bar at this event! The USA Pears Night Market creates a street food fair akin to those in Southeast Asia, but with booths staffed by national and local chefs handing out their favorite dishes, which often times consisted of an Asian-flair to stay true to the theme:
Up top is the lovely Lee Anne Wong from Honolulu, Hawaii’s Koko Head Cafe, serving up one of her famous breakfast dumplings. The dumpling consisted of maple Sriracha pork, bacon and sage gravy, creamy eggs and maple Tabasco. One of my favorites of the night.
Fish was a popular ingredient that was served; there was a lot of raw tuna, yellowtail, salmon, and other seafood to choose from:
From top to bottom: albacore tuna with sea vegetables, matsutake, dashi and nasturium from Oregon Coast Restaurant Beck; a salmon and apricot ceviche from local Peruvian fusion restaurant Andina; a raw salmon and grape salad with jerk spice, palm sugar and habanero vinaigrette from Jon Shook of Los Angeles’ Son of A Gun restaurant.
There were also some wraps, frybread (kind of like tacos, but better), and skewered dishes that stayed true to Night Market’s streetfood theme:
I was also particularly fond of these alfajores cookies (that is, Argentinean shortbread cookie sandwiches with a rich dulce de leche caramel in the middle) from Andina, which I’ll be attempting to recreate on the blog soon:
My favorite dessert, however, was local winemaker Union Wine Company‘s collaboration with other local purveyors Jacobsen Sea Salt and Quin Candy. Together, they teamed up to bring us some wine-flavored sweet treats, including this Pinot Noir-flavored cotton candy (handed out by Quin’s head candymaker Jami Curl herself) and caramel corn topped with Pinot Blanc-infused Jacobsen sea salt:
Learn More:
- Shameless plug: did I mention I’m available for hire as a food and food-events photographer? You can see my (grievously outdated) portfolio and contact me for more information.
- Check out the full line-up of chefs and vendors at Feast Portland’s information page about the Night Market. Next year’s Feast will be held on September 17 – 20, 2015 so mark your calendars!
It's no wonder you were a photographer for Feast– your photos are wonderful!
ooh, nasturtium leaves? so pretty and what a good garnish idea.
Dude, your photos are AMAZING! I love that pic you have with my hand holding the crab nachos- so sick. I definitely have been using your posts as references to the names of dishes I forgot to photograph. Awesome post!
Oh! And the rabbit loin was from Ataula 🙂
Awesome photos, as always! Night Market looks so amazing. I'll have to get tickets to that event next year!
That all looks SO GOOD!!! I am definitely going to clear my schedule for this next year 😀
The COTTON CANDY THOUGH!