EAT! Vancouver Food + Cooking Festival 2014

Every year since I started my blog, I've been fortunate enough to be invited to attend the ever popular EAT! Vancouver Food + Cooking Festival at BC Place. I always love coming with Meta Knight every year because it's a great way to view your favourite food brands and sample their products.

Check out my EAT! Vancouver reviews from: 2012 and 2013.

First up was the "Mexico" travel booth. They were serving up some nachos with a chocolate mole sauce. It wasn't my cup of tea.

There are some outrageous things in this world...A $2,600 bottle of water from Urban Fare being one of them.

Urban Fare also brought a ton of exotic fruit to sell including mangosteens, square watermelon, and durian.

I very much enjoyed the ever-so tiny Red Velvet Cake with cream cheese icing from Bluebird Cakery! You can find their products at Urban Fare.

 I was intrigued by this ramen stand thinking they were giving out samples of ramen! Turns out you need food tickets (which can be purchased inside the festival, on top of your admission fee) so we decided to be cheap and not get any. :P

 KFI had a booth and they were serving samples of butter chicken. Meta Knight and I both didn't get any chicken in our sample so I think they were really just letting you try their sauce (they were selling it at the booth).

 Ra Energy is a company I've never heard of so I was super intrigued by what they had to offer.

They created a topping using a combination of buckwheat, sesame, chia seeds, flax seeds, and shelled hemp. What makes them unique is that they recommend you to sprinkle this topping onto your food three times a day for greater energy, less food cravings, and better sleep.

I tried the garlic flavoured topping on top of avocado and oh my god was it amazing... I can eat this by the buckets because not only is this delicious, you know you're putting good food into your body.

I was also SUPER excited to see Peanut Butter & Co at EAT! Vancouver too because I've heard so many great things about their dark chocolate peanut butter.

They also have flavours like Cinnamon Raisin Swirl, White Chocolate Wonderful, Dark Chocolate Dreams, The Heat is On, and The Bee's Knees. They were selling 4 for $10 which is an incredibly deal.

Even Starbucks got in on the action and gave samples of their refreshers.

 Bruce Cost Ginger Ale is made with REAL ginger (not ginger extract) and is flavoured with a bunch of cool teas and fruit pulp.

I would definitely recommend this to all ginger ale lovers but just know that this is REAL ginger ale, and it doesn't taste anything like Canada Dry. You'll either love it or hate it.

 Liberte and their sample greek yogurt truck.

Oikos being one of Liberte's largest competitor obviously couldn't let Liberte distribute samples without a little friendly competition.

 Bosa Foods gave out free lattes and biscotti.

 I tried this Porcini Mushroom Sauce and absolutely fell in love. Cooking pasta with this sauce will probably give any mushroom lover a foodgasm. No joke.

 Hungry for samples.

Of course, EAT! Vancouver wouldn't be complete without Matt and Steve's extreme bean and caesar sample!

 Ok vegans.. would you ever try Vegan Coconut Bacon?? It's flaked coconut, seasoned with bacon seasoning... :D

 BKH Jerky (as seen on Dragon's Den) made an appearance this year.

 They were sampling out Pork Jerky, Beef Jerky, and Spicy Pork Jerky. All were very delicious and not the least bit tough.

 A ton of people were purchasing them in larger quantities.

Before leaving, every visitor of the festival received a SunRype Fruit Activ Orange Tangerine juice to take home as well as Reggae Reggae Jerk Sauce. Apparently this jerk sauce is the product of UK Dragon Den's winner, Levi Roots.

That's it for this year!

Happy Eating!

 

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Tasting Plates YVR: Gastown Edition

Having lived in Vancouver all my life, I was surprised that I've never been thought of going on a food tour here before. Curtis (foodobyte) recently started bringing me along to Tasting Plates YVR which is a food tour put on my Vanfoodster and it literally is like a pub crawl, but for food!

The tasting plate adventure this time around was in the Gastown area. Yay!

Our registration check-in was at Catch 122. I previously visited this place before (post here) and had a subpar experience. However, these three tasting bites were impressive. In the front is this delicious and juicy pressed confit pork shoulder with smoked potato and pork crackling. 

Another outstanding item is the house-made tortellini with Quebec cheese curd, house-smoked bacon, and soubise sauce. To say it was smokey is an understatement. This tortellini bursted with flavour inside my mouth and I would gladly eat a whole plate of this.

Next up was the Hastings Urban Farm which promoted Hives for Humanity's raw honey served on the comb and Martin's Marvelous rosemary lavendar and chocolate mole crisps. 

If you are ever on Hastings, you should go check this farm out! When it's bright out, you'll even see the bees working in their little hive!

Honey comb is unlike anything I've ever tasted and is certainly a special treat. The crisps were also delicious and reminded me of the local Lesley Stowe crisps I get all the time.

I've never heard of Burgundy Restaurant before so I was excited to try out some of their offerings. 

The Goat Cheese Fondue was a little more pungent than the usual Swiss or Gruyere but I quite enjoyed it. Especially with the seemingly odd pairings of grape and apple.

They also had a sample of Beef Bourguignon and it was delish. A nice baguette would have been perfect to soak up all the leftover rich gravy.

Last but not least is the (dollop :P) of Chocolate Mousse. Light, rich, delicious.

My only disappointment on the food tour was the Bitter Tasting Room. Not only was the food mediocre, when I asked for a cup of hot water (I had a sore throat at the time), they just gave me hot tap water. Not boiled... I didn't end up touching it.

Their barbecue pulled pork taco was quite bland and dry with no hint of barbecue taste.

At the Salt Tasting Room, we were given two meats, one cheese, three condiments, and crackers.

I am in no way a sophisticated person when it comes to food so meat, cheese, and bread like this are just not my cup of tea. However, all the ingredients were undoubtedly fresh and quite delicious on their own.

Milano Coffee is apparently a very well known coffee shop with three locations in Vancouver alone.

This is totally a hipster coffee shop (I'll get to it in a sec) with a large variety of healthy, organic, and gluten conscious power bars.

First of all, did I miss the memo when all wooden stir sticks changed to pasta? HIPSTER! :P Anyways, the Espresso La Futura Macchiato is not for the faint of heart. But if you like strong triple shot espressos at Starbucks? You'll probably enjoy this.

The Espresso Nuovo Stovetop was absolutely deicious!!! It was smooth, creamy, and a ton of people on the tour loved it too (yes I eavesdropped :P).

At The Irish Heather, we were given a plate of Steak & Ale Stew on Calcannon. I enjoyed its robust flavour and I wouldn't mind it on a cold windy night.

Our last stop of the day was a coffee and dessert shop called Trees Organic. They are famous for their cheesecakes and amazingly, this was one of our restaurants on the tour!

We got a sample of the New York Cheesecake and the Almond Marzipan Cheesecake. Unlike most cheesecakes, this one was light, fluffy, and not dense in the slightest. I like my cheesecake with a bit more substance so I actually didn't prefer this variety. Curtis on the other hand really enjoyed this.

Tasting Plates tickets are around $40 per ticket and the next one is in the Main Street neighbourhood. You can buy tickets here.

Happy Eating!

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