Last weekend, my co-worker and I ventured out to Eat!Vancouver, which returned to its original location of BC Place this year. Hubby did not join me this year due to spending most of his Saturday writing an exam; he was quite happy to be able to stay home and relax.
I can honestly say that this year's Eat!Vancouver is the first where I was pretty much always eating or drinking a sample of something. The samples that we had this year were quite varied, and it certainly helped that there were more vendors offering drinks as samples, something that has been sorely lacking the past few years. I mean, there IS the beer and wine section, but one can only have so many alcohol samples! I was able to have a fruit smoothie from McDonald's (surprisingly tasty!), Boylan's cherry soda (we went back to get their four bottle deal), a Peruvian slushie with pineapple juice and other fruits (had more of a savoury taste, but very pleasant and refreshing), lemonade with a shot of raspberry syrup and pineapple tea.
One of our first purchases of the day was salmon jerky from Westcoast Select. I have very fond memories of the beef jerky (and the one time moose jerky!) that my mom would make for our long road trips, but I've never had salmon jerky before. This stuff was like candy: very tender and sweet, with a touch of smokiness. My co-worker and I split on their two-for-one deal for the show.
The oddest sample that we had was probably the booth that we visited immediately after Westcoast Select. Supposedly, the newest super food is chia seeds (as in the same stuff used for Chia Pets!). We would later have bread samples from Cobbs Bread that also used chia seeds in the recipe. Anyways, the lady at the chia seeds booth was very enthusiastic and told us all about the benefits of chia seeds and how they can easily be added to your cereal, yogurt or shake. They were offering samples with yogurt, granola and chia seeds. The seeds have a surprisingly glutinous consistency to them, a little like the initial taste you get after chewing on wheat seeds, but more pleasant.
We eventually made our way to the Bite of Vancouver area, where you exchange tickets for food samples from different restaurants. My co-worker and I first cruised each of the booths to see their offerings, then returned to the ones from which we wanted to get samples from. I got my first sample from Salmon n' Bannock Bistro, cinnamon bannock. The bannock was very crisp and warm, and the cinnamon sugar gave it that nice touch of sweetness. My next sample was from Glowbal Group (the company responsible for restaurants such as Glowbal, Sanafir, Coast and my birthday restaurant this year, Black + Blue). They had a bacon-wrapped scallop with duck rice. The rice didn't have much duck in it, but it didn't need to, it was DIVINE. The scallop was very tender and tasted fairly fresh. We then both got samples from Frankie's Italian Kitchen; my co-worker got their vegetarian friendly pasta and I got the meatballs. The meatballs were full of so many different flavors and were incredibly juicy as well. Yum! My final sample (as least until we returned for dessert) was from Ebo (who were at Eat!Vancouver last year for the first time). They had a lamb slider burger, again using the adorable little boat presentation. The burger was DELISH; I quite enjoyed the onion marmelade that they used in the burger.
After having our fill of food, we wandered through the booths some more, sampling food whereever we could. As mentioned before, there were far more drink samples available this year, so we sought out something to drink. We were passing through the International food section, and found a Peruvian booth that was offering iced drinks of sort. This is the closest that I can find of what I had, but it was a frozen ice version (like a slushie). As I've already mentioned, it had more of a savoury taste, but still very refreshing. I was quite happy with the different booths offering desserts for sale, one of which was selling French macarons. I got a six-pack with chocolate, french vanilla, pistachio, passion fruit & mandarine, salted caramel and lemon macarons. Much later, I happened upon one booth that was selling these MASSIVE homemade marshmallows. I got the key lime flavored one, and it was surprisingly flavorful and not too sweet. I didn't really feel the sugar rush until the last few bites of the thing. My co-worker was laughing at me pretty much the whole time I was eating it. We then happened upon the Serengeti Tea Company, and they were offering samples of their stick tea. The neat thing about the perforated dispensers? They're recylclable AND the stick doubles as a stirrer!
We then hit the wine & beer section. One of the more interesting samples that I had was chocolate red wine. It was similar to Bailey's, just with a slight hint of red wine. I also sampled a really nice cab merlot, which had a nice fruitiness to it with a slight earthy finish. We didn't stay in this section too long; it had already become party central for some visitors. We also visited the culinary arts section that had a variety of food art done with either chocolate or vegetables. I quite liked the Asian themed set done with cucumbers, carrots, and various root vegetables.
We then headed back to the Bite of Vancouver section for dessert. I got the peanut butter mousse from Ebo and my co-worker got the tiramisu from Frankie's Italian kitchen. It was until after I had finished my sample that I realized how much peanut butter flavored samples I had that day (earlier while roaming the booths, I had a sample of chocolate peanut butter...yum!). The mousse was quite lovely though: very smooth with just the right balance of peanut butter and chocolate flavors. We then got rid of the last few of our tickets at another salmon booths offering smoked salmon nuggets tossed in a sesame/BBQ sauce. Yummy!
All in all, we had a good day at the festival. Can't wait for next year!
Here is the meal plan for the upcoming week. I've been getting a bit lazy lately with some of the late stays at work, so some meals don't end up being made (but I'm hoping that won't happen this week because as hubby puts it, it's a "me" centered meals week). One new recipe from Ted Allen's new cookbook In My Kitchen, the rest are oldies. Enjoy the weekend and happy cooking all!
June 10-15th
Sunday: Sweet n' sour meatballs with rice
Monday: Cornmeal-crumbed chicken, salad
Tuesday: Mini pizzas
Wednesday: Linguine with white clam sauce
Thursday: Potato-leek soup with bacon
Friday: Herb spaetzle with sausage (new recipe)