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| Ready to Eat and Drink! |
Bring on the Food!
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| Food & Wine Festival Passport |
So I'll preface this post by stating that I did go last year to the Food & Wine Festival, but that I felt this year's was more popular and more delicious. If you have a chance to check it out, I highly recommend it! I will start with the booths I tried, and what I tried from each booth. I may go back later into the month to try more, so stay tuned, as there may be more reviews to come.
Also, if you are going and planning on trying out the food and drinks from the various booths, I highly recommend picking up one of these handy dandy Food & Wine Festival Tasting Passports. It has a bit more information that the pamphlets they are handing out, such as the various specialty drinks that are served at each kiosk in addition to the food and the map of the different kiosk locations. The Passport also denotes which of the food items are gluten-friendly and/or vegetarian. You can get the passport from a kiosk and they are FREE!
Note: My friend and I arrived at the park at 11am. The Festival begain at 10:30. Even between 10:30-11:30 they had already ran out of quite a bit of food, so you may need to check back for what you really want to try.
Our Method:
We walked all the way to the last koisk towards the boardwalk and then worked our way back towards Carthay Circle and around to Hollywood land to hit the LA Styles Booth.
Off the Cob
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| JackFruit Carnia Banh Mi Nachos |
This was our first stop and it was delicious! It was less crowded as it was all the way at the end of the boardwalk. We picked up two of the savory food items here. The JackFruit Carnita Banh Mi Nachos with Cilantro Crema and "Pickled" de Gallo and Sweet Corn Nuggets with Beef Chili, Spring Onions & Sour Cream.
The Nachos: I have always been a fan of JackFruit but had never had it cooked into carnitas before. I am so glad I got these! They were very good. The flavors all worked well together. It was both a bit savory and sweet and was a great way to start the day. If you are not a fan of more asian influenced flavors, you may not like these that much, but for me, I love it, and I was happy.
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| Sweet Corn Nuggets with Chili (Photo Credit: DB) |
The Corn Nuggets: These were the perfect combination of savory! The bean chili topped with green onions and sour cream really paired well with the sweet taste of the corn. The chili was very good, and even the corn nuggets eaten without being covered in chili were very good alone.
Both of the items at this booth were great.
Lemon Grove
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| Lemon Macaron and Mule |
The Macaron was so good at first bite. I really enjoyed the blueberry dust with the Lemon Cream and Lemon Macaron, however I was not a huge fan of the blueberry marmalade. I think the macaron would have been perfect without the change in texture in the center.
The Mule was great! It was a perfect first drink at the Festival. It was a bit spicy and the flavors really worked perfectly together.
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| Pork Belly Bao |
Garlic Kissed
This was one of the best dishes I tried on this day. It was so delicious. I will start with the fact that I am a huge Bao fan. I love it. So when I tried the Black Garlic & Soy-Braised Pork Belly Bao with Pickled Vegetables, I was already sold, really. It was very flavorful. I would say that they only negatives to this item is the line. Also, it is really a hit or miss on how fatty the pork is that you get. Mine was a bit fattier than my friends, but it was still delicious. If this sounds like something you would be interested in trying, do it.
LA Style
After we did most of the booths on the main drag, we headed to the LA Style booth that is tucked away near Stage 17 and the Monster's Inc. ride. When we got there, the line for this tucked away booth wasn't very long. SCORE! By this time, my friend and I were a bit full, so we decided to split the Korean Barbecue Beef Short Rib Tacos with Kimchi Slaw. The flavors in this item were very similar to the Bao, but was still delicious in its own right. If you are more a fan of beef than pork, then this would be a great option for you to get those classic flavors without the pork. Overall, these were pretty delicious, but did have a similar flavor to the Bao.
Sweet & Sourdough
After we walked around for a bit longer, we swung back around and headed to Sweet & Sourdough. We both wanted to try the White Cheddar Lager Soup in the Mini Boudin Sourdough Boule. I am glad we did wind up back here. This soup was amazing. The flavors were solid. This is a bit of a heavier item, so this is what we finished with. The Bread bowl was great without being chewy, and really made the soup that much better. Overall
Overall, I would recommend spending some time at this year's Food and Wine Festival. I feel that it was much better than the attempts made in previous years. Go venture around and pick up a map and a passport and find things to expand your taste buds. Many of the things we tried were delcious, and I know you can find one, or many, things that you will love just as much as I/we did.
Feel free to comment or reach out to me if you have any questions! @engrbrianne_fit on Instagram :)
