LA Food & Wine Festival

I watch a lot of Cooking Shows and Culinary Competitions on TV, and I subscribe to Food & Wine, and Cooking Light, as I love Food, being in the kitchen, going out for Happy Hour and Dinners to try new restaurants around LA.  Watching my shows and reading my magazines, the LA Food & Wine Festival is always one of the topics of conversation.  So one of my dreams came true when Jamie took me as her guest to the Festival a couple Fridays ago!

Downtown LA at Sunset

The LA Food & Wine Fest took place in Downtown LA at the Walt Disney Hall with over 100 celebrity chefs, 250 wineries, DJ's and entertainment, and more!  There were so many different stops that there was no way we were even able to come close to hitting half of them.  It was literally food and wine overload.  I noticed a lot of the restaurants and tastings we did were pork heavy, and perhaps, that's just the places we stopped at, but it was everything from tacos, to pork belly, to sliders, and more.  My favorite bite we tried was the Shrimp Coconut Cake from Phorage.  I burned my mouth because I couldn't wait for it to cool down but it was so worth it!  In fact, this last week I went in search of that appetizer at Phorage here in Culver City but unfortunately it was just a specialty item for the Food & Wine Festival.  I'm hoping they make it a special one of these days at their restaurant and I can stop in for a little bite of heaven!  

Jamie & I at the LA Food & Wine Festival

Now onto the wine, these weren't your typical wines.  These were wines that had flavors I'd never tried before, more exotic, more exciting, different profiles, and everything was delicious.  Navigating the event with food in one hand and a glass in the other we had to stop at the Stella booth to get our plate that had a holder for your wine glass.  They were also handing out full glasses of Stella and I actually got a few new wine and beer glasses to add to my bar at home!   Jamie and I did a mini-vodka tasting at Infuse Vodka before we left the event and I was excited because we sell that brand of Vodka at Bar Lubitsch.  We covered as much ground as we could in the two hours we were there but I can totally understand why some people get an all-weekend pass so they can leisurely make their way around the whole Festival.

Overall, it was quite the experience, and something I'm so lucky to have been able to attend.  This was one of my dreams come true and now that I've been to my first Food & Wine Festival, I can't wait to go again.  And this time, I'll have a complete game plan so I can find my favorite restaurants and try more incredible food :)  Thank you Jamie! 

*I wish I had taken more photos of the food, but because our hands were full, it was hard to take pictures along the way.  Photos from the event can be seen on LA Food & Wine's Instagram profile at: https://instagram.com/lafoodwine/*