When these words were uttered, my husband was equal parts impressed, overwhelmed and full of food. This weekend the Delicious Food Show landed at the Better Living Centre at Exhibition Place and everyone who went weighs slightly more than they did the day before. Hey! That rhymed! Also, it might be an exaggeration, though not for me. I ate. A lot. And I regret nothing.
This was my first time at the Delicious Food Show (a three day annual event, now in its second year) and I wasn't entirely sure what to expect but given the list of participants, I expected that there would be oodles of food. And there was, but even more than I expected. The Better Living Centre is quite large and there were hundreds of exhibitors in attendance. You know what that means, right? FREE SAMPLES GALORE.
At every turn there were samples laid out on tables or placed into your hands. In true free sample style, some of them were teensy bites meant to lure you in to larger purchases but there were a surprising number of very generous servings being offered. Breakfast sandwich segments, dried fruits, soup, granola bars, juice, chocolates, Jelly Bellys, tea, various guacamole, salsas and dips... and I know I only sampled a fraction of the samples. It would have been pretty easy to fill-up on food samples but as tempting as that was, I didn't want to miss out on what else was being offered.
I don't want to knock the free samples but the good stuff, the really good stuff required coughing up a bit of dough. And rightly so! (so many rhymes guys, I'm out of control) Our first stop was at The Frankie Fettuccine Food Truck Co., who were minus their truck but fortunately that didn't seem to hurt their game. Ever since their win for "Best New Truck" at AwesTRUCK 2013, I have been looking for an opportunity to check out their wares, specifically their arancini. Delicious! We followed 'em up with some jerk chicken from Chef Carlton's Island Spiced, which was equal parts spicy and tasty.
Big surprise, my day included a stop at the Hot Bunzz booth. Sometimes I feel like I should make more of an effort to try new dishes at these food events, but in my defense, Hot Bunzz had teamed with Abbey's Kitchen and created a brand new harvest-themed menu. Brilliant. The Harvest Collection was made up of three "courses" (main, side and dessert) with each stuffed accordingly. I opted to try the "side" of roasted beets, quinoa, apples, orange zest, baby spinach, mascarpone, goats cheese & walnut pesto. I don't even want to talk about how good this was because it's not fair to all the other foods. YUM. Hot Bunzz were a tough act to follow but the rice balls from ME.N.U held their own quite nicely. I tried the "Angry Birds" (roasted chicken, mushroom, spinach, onions & cheese) and my husband went for the "Pokeball" (Chinese & Filipino sausage, "sexy assorted veggies" & cheese).
At this point we were starting to feel full but there was too much delicious food around us to stop. We stopped by Kung Fu Tacos for a couple of mini-shrimp tacos (other vendors take note: more mini-versions of foods next year please!) and then spotted one of our local favs Hawker Bar and pushed ourselves right over the line of comfortably full with a spectacular bowl of their Laksa Lemak (curry broth, rice noodles, veggies & chicken). This was approximately when I thought I might burst but there isn't much I won't do for the sake of sweet, sweet noodles. #iregretnothing
We were forced to take a break before even thinking about dessert so we decided to scope out the less literal food exhibitors. There were many of kitchen appliances and gadgets being sold and lots of demonstrations/workshops happening along the edges of the room for adults and children alike. The notion of the "celebrity chef" is still a fairly recent phenomenon and it was cool to see a crowd queuing up to meet Michael Smith or to watch Lynn Crawford live on stage. The biggest name at the Delicious Food Show was *gasp* Martha Stewart, which is pretty impressive, but she was there the evening before so I didn't get to witness the throngs of Martha groupies in person.
Dessert. Sadly, dessert didn't get nearly as much attention as it deserved due to my over-eager eating but we still managed to fit in some sweet yums before leaving. In addition to tea, The Tea Emporium was serving up waffles with fruit and fresh cream and they tasted as good as they smelled. Heavenly. Not counting a few more sweet free samples that was really it for dessert. Shameful. But never fear! We stopped by Crazy Corn and grabbed a bag of "He Shoots He Skorrres" caramel corn (drizzled with milk chocolate & Skor toffee bits) to be enjoyed later.
If I had any more room in my stomach you can bet that I would have filled it with any of the above desserts. Cheesecake, meringues, caramels... everything a sweet tooth like mine could desire. Next year I'll do a better job saving room for dessert. Or maybe I'll start with dessert so there's no fear of missing out. Or MAYBE I'll go twice. One day for savory, one day for sweet! Best. Plan. Ever.
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