Feast Portland 2021: Claima Stories

Feast — Portland’s premier food and drink festival — made a comeback in 2021! After skipping a year due to the pandemic, I was happy to see Feast return in its new form: Summer of Feast.

Feast Portland 2021: Claima Stories

To keep everyone safe, this year’s Feast Portland events were smaller, with plenty of space for social distancing. As someone who has covered Feast for a few years, Summer of Feast felt like a much needed change of pace. I attended one of the Claima Stories live podcast recordings at the Oregon Contemporary, which felt much more intimate than previous years. Instead of the usual frenzied festival energy, this event felt like a low key gathering in a friend’s backyard, where you could wander around leisurely and chat with other attendees. And of course, I loved that this Claima Stories event featured vegan restaurants!

While I nibbled away on Mitate Sushi — hands down, the best vegan sushi I’ve ever had — and sipped on a refreshing rose, Bimma Williams of Claima Stories interviewed Diane Lam of Prey & Tell and Jewan Manuel of Plant Based Papi. I’ve followed both their journeys in the Portland food scene for some time, and it was so inspiring to hear them speak. Claima Stories will released the podcast episode later this year, so keep an eye out for that. After devouring a plate of sushi, we enjoyed popsicles from Ice Queen and samples from Westward Whiskey. I went back for another round sushi too — Mitate’s specialty rolls, especially the Mountain roll with miso-baked tofu, black bean truffle puree, and a crispy kale chip, are divine.

Congrats to Feast Portland for making the Summer of Feast a safe and enjoyable experience. It was good to see so many familiar masked faces that evening. Looking forward to Feast Portland 2022!