Portland food news and views
It’s almost that time again—time for the 2025 Portland Fermentation Festival, aka Stinkfest, as it is lovingly called. This celebration of all things fermented, fizzy, and alive has been going on since 2009 (with a break during the COVID pandemic). Here are the details about this year’s Festival.
Continue reading “Get Ready for the 2025 Portland Fermentation Festival”
Proof Pizza, a Beaverton pizza cart, is opening a brick & mortar in Portland. They’ll be keeping the truck in Beaverton and expanding eastward to SE Portland, bringing their popular Chicago-style thin crust tavern pies with them. Look for them to be open initially the first week of September—a late night service window and pickup/delivery. Then in October they’ll have the full bar and restaurant up and running. The location? The old Pepper Box Cafe, which closed in 2023. 932 SE Morrison Street, Portland
Continue reading “Small Bites: Proof Pizza, Bialy Bird, Stinkfest, and More”
I was happy to learn that the 2024 Portland Fermentation Fest is back this October, offering all sorts of wonderfully fizzy, funky, and stinky food and drink, all thanks to friendly bacteria and their metabolic partying. Think yogurt, sauerkraut, kombucha, pickles, tempeh, and more, all beautifully featured right here in Portland. It’s pickling and preserving season, too, so this is a great time to learn about this form of food preservation, or grow your appreciation of it further. Note: As of the afternoon of October 10, tickets are sold out.
Continue reading “The 2024 Portland Fermentation Festival Is Almost Here”Ice cream in the old Hemp Bar space? A Bridgetown Bites reader emailed me to ask about what’s going into the old Hemp Bar space in the For Mrs Noble building (did you know it won the 2021 DeMuro Award?) in FoPo. He said, “Looks like someone is painting an ice cream sign next to what was once Hemp Bar.” I did some research and came up with a big ol’ goose egg. Do you know what’s going on there? Comment here or shoot me an email. 6258 SE Foster Road, Portland
Milo’s City Cafe has new owners. Albert Escobar and his wife, Maria Elena Diaz, are the new owners of Milo’s City Cafe, a breakfast/brunch/lunch spot on NE Broadway on the southern edge of Irvington. I mentioned in May what was explained as a “temporary” closure of Milo’s, but as Albert explains in an article in The Oregonian, “the closure was more permanent than advertised.”
More from Albert: “The previous owners, Jeff and Pam (Munden), they just walked away,” Albert said. “I was like, ‘Hey, I thought we were going to be shut down for a month. I know a lot of people here, customers, the neighborhood, are going to be sad.’ In my heart, I didn’t want this to be over.” Read more about it in the O. 1325 NE Broadway, Portland
French bakeries in Portland visual roundup. The Alliance Française of Portland put together a nice Instagram post of their favorite French bakeries in the area. All are great sources of delicious pastries, including the sweet almondy Galette des Rois in January.
The Portland Fermentation Festival is back! Stinkfest returns after a COVID-induced three year hiatus (here’s what went on in 2019) and will take place again at Ecotrust in NW Portland on Thursday October 19, 6pm to 9pm. The general public has two ticket options: $15 for just the fermentation tasting (starts at 7:30pm), and $30 for the tasting plus the keynote (starts around 6pm), this year by Kirsten Shockey, co-founder of The Fermentation School (Kirsten is based in southern Oregon). These prices above are for tickets you buy ahead of the event; they go up to $20 to $35, respectiverly, if you are paying cash at the door. Read more about the festival and buy your tickets via this Eventbrite link. 721 NW 9th Avenue, Portland
Portland Fermentation Fest will not happen in 2022. The organizers behind Portland’s own “Stinkfest” announced they are now holder the Fermentation Festival this year: “The three of us (volunteer organizers Wanpaku Natto, Liz Crain and Urban Cheesecraft Kits) will re-evaluate for 2023. Time will tell. Thank you so much for your support over the years and patience in the last couple of years. We miss our sweet stinkfest and we miss you!”
It’s a great festival (see my writeup from 2019) and I do hope they will return in 2023.
Red Sauce Pizza will open their dining room. It’s coming, and for that I’m glad: the Red Sauce dining room is opening … soon. I’ll be there. 4641 NE Fremont Street, Portland
Future Days will pop up in the old Handsome Pizza space. Kiki and Casey, former employees at Handsome Pizza/Seastar Bakery, are popping up in their old digs this weekend as Future Days. They’ll be making pizza that was a hot ticket item during their time in SLC. Head there Sunday September 25, 5-9pm. It will be nice to have that oven working again. 1603 NE Killingsworth Street, Portland
Kalesa Coffee opens tomorrow morning. Head to the new brick & mortal space of former popup Kalesa Coffee tomorrow morning from 9am to 1pm for their grand opening party. There will be coffee, of course (their own roast), with Filipino flavors (ube, for one), plus breakfast sandwiches, toast, and sides from Balong. Definitely check them out! 7024 N Richards Street, Portland
Bonus: NYC’s Cevallos brothers custom made a sign for Laughing Planet in PDX. You can read about these brothers originally from Ecuador who work with many Queens businesses (in Jackson Heights, among other neighborhoods) to make hand-crafted signs as promotional tools. I have to admit I am delighted to see when Queens and Portland intersect. You can check out the sign here.
