I attended my first smaller Feast PDX event (not yet then dubbed Fun Sized) last year at the Aaron Franklin BBQ event. This year, Feast Portland added even more Fun Sized events, and I’m glad they did – I hope they add even more next year. For Feast PDX 2016, Go Get You Some Picnic was the Fun Sized event I attended.

Unlike the big marquee events, these smaller events have a more laid back feel where you have less variety of chefs and food, but the plates are still enough for a meal (the plates each of the Chefs make are a bit bigger). As a guest you have room to sit and eat after getting your food from the booths or barrels to stand and eat cocktail party style, so no need to worry about juggling your food and drink unlike the marquee walk around events.

There’s still a short time as a guest needed though on visiting booths collecting food, it isn’t served to you like at a Dinner Series event so you are still responsible for fetching it yourself in the order you want like at the Marquee walk around events. But at the Fun Sized Events mean you are only sharing the Chefs with 200 others (and they are not slammed with like 1000 people like the big events), so lines if any are short and fast generally just at the beginning when they let everyone in.

Since the chefs are in tents instead of behind in a kitchen like in the Dinner Series, you can also very easily talk to them after eating and everyone has gotten their food. Unlike a Dinner Series though each of the Chefs does not do a mini speech telling you the story behind the dish they decided to offer.

So now here’s a look at my food! The theme was Southern-style picnic featuring fried chicken and sides from

• Tommy Habetz of Bunk Sandwiches and Pizza Jerk chicken was Korean Fried Chicken with apples, kimchee, and Willapa Hills Big Boy Blue Side
  
• Gabriel Rucker of Le Pigeon and Little Bird gave us a French Indian take with his Hot chicken with vaudovan seasonings (and white bread and pickles) along with Salad Sauce and Tequila watermelon salad with sesame cucumber and jalapeno
  
• Maya Lovelace of pop-up and already well loved by me for Mae PDX (which I’ve enjoyed and written about previously) brought a perfect piece of the chicken via Lard fried chicken wing accompanied by a sorghum butter and country ham biscuit and after-church broccoli salad. Loooove.
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• Bostonian Matt Jennings of Townsman brought Chicken Fried Pigtails, Hot Sauce, Stinky Chow Chow, as well as a side (thank god, because 2 of the 3 chicken dishes and his chicken fried pig tails were all adding up to a lot of heat so I needed a break now and then) of Three Bean Salad to the picnic.
  
  
• Annie Portlock of Annie Pies with 3 Mini-Pies
  
  • Honey Lime Coconut Pie – honey shortbread, honey lime coconut cream, whip, toasted coconut, lime zest, I loved how tart these were!
    
  • S’mores Pie – scratch graham, chocolate ganache, toasted marshmallow – these were my favorite of the 3
    
  • Peach Julep Pie – gingersnap crust, minty peach filling, Kentucky bourbon white chocolate mousse
    
• More dessert via a surprise appearance of Mika Paredes of Girls Club (ok, not too surprising as I just saw the three of them at my recent Plate & Pitchfork dinner and they are all friends, and I was stoked to see her even though she wasn’t on the Chef roster for the event) and she wowed everyone with Ambrosia salad Vietnamese “Che” style
  
• More dessert thanks to Tillamook offering three flavor scoops of Oregon Marionberry Cheesecake Frozen Custard, Stumptown Cold Brew Extra Creamy Ice Cream, and Tcho Double Dark Chocolate Farmstyle Gelato
  
• Drinks from the Union Wine Co, Widmer Brothers Brewing, and Stumptown Coffee Roasters.
  

The event was so relaxing I had time to gather all the savory dishes at once so I could just sit down and eat all at once without having to get back up (great because several of these dishes were extremely messy with sauces; don’t know where they hid all the napkins and towels, but I was glad as part of my usual Feast supplies I always carry extra paper towels in my bag!) until my dessert round, and I got those all together as well!

When the Feast tickets for 2017 go on sale in the spring, I highly recommend checking out the list of Fun Sized Events. It’s a perfect event in that it is a mashup of a theme with multiple chefs including out of town chefs and getting to try multiple perspectives of that theme from the different chefs, but also casual and laid back so you can enjoy the experience and relax while eating rather then being in a big crowd at the bigger events. Did I mention the sitting to eat and drink enough yet?

Since you serve yourself you will be able to try everything within generally an hour or so, versus the longer 4 hour Dinner Series which have formal courses or the Marquee Events that just have more food and chefs to cover. The trade off is less variety of bites and less chefs than a Marquee event, and unlike the Dinner Series but like the big events you still have to visit booths and have minor lines as you pick up your own dishes.

But if the theme is one you are interested in or you really want to meet or try the food of the participating Chef, a Fun Sized Event would be a great compromise with the intimacy of a Dinner Series event and with the fun of a choose your own Feast adventure.

Save the date for Feast Portland 2017, scheduled for September 14 –  17 2017.  Feast will be posting the schedule next spring which is when tickets go on sale, and many will sell out within just a few hours or within a few days so stay tuned to their newsletter and on their social media for on-going Feast updates.
Disclosure: I was granted a Blogger Pass for Feast Portland 2016 for blog post and social media coverage but I am not otherwise being compensated. Even before I was given the Blogger Pass I already had tickets for some Feast events that I paid for myself, and this event I paid for myself ($85 all inclusive). I will always provide my honest opinion and assessment of all products and experiences I may be given. The views and opinions expressed in this blog are entirely my own.