On my birthday, I celebrated myself with a reservation to an Urban Farmer Mushroom Dinner. It included a mushroom cocktail and mushroom centered 4 course dinner at Urban Farmer Portland. This was the first of a Mushroom Dinner series as the executive chefs collaborate at the other two Urban Farmer locations, there was one in Denver yesterday (check out the Urban Farmer Denver Instagram stories for how fun it looked), and one in Philadelphia coming up next In September. Hmmm, I wonder if I’ll be in town (F’s family is in that area) in September during that time… Each of the Urban Farmer Mushroom Dinner events has the same 3 chefs from the 3 locations joining forces, but creating new dishes for each event, so a new menu each location. 
In a luxe touch, each seat had a numbered wood laser cut menu that had two different kinds of mushrooms possible. I did pick my seat based on the mushroom I wanted (the other one was maybe an oyster mushroom?) Also the centerpieces on every table had mushrooms in them too!
Although the Portland event has already happened, in honor of this event series, you can still stop by at all Urban Farmer locations throughout the month of June for a special Mushroom Steak entrée featuring a whole roasted mushroom smoked with bourbon barrels and a black garlic molasses sauce.
The dinner series is inspired by the Urban Farmers’ in-house mushroom terrariums. During the dinner, Urban Farmer Portland Executive Chef Matt Christianson not only stayed hydrated by sipping from a mug decorated with mushrooms (as seen below to the left), but was so enthused to talk about the foraging from the wild or homegrown thanks to Misty Mountain Mushrooms and the mushroom incubation program at Urban Farmer. He showed us how the mushrooms are grown in these bag covered substrate blocks. He even cooked the main course right in the room so the dining area became aromatic with the scent of cooked mushrooms.
In the back of the dining room, there was also a show and tell display of different mushrooms!
