And the adventure continues…..
Day 2 of the FoodBuzz Festival found us well rested and still satiated from the previous nights glorious dinner. The agenda of the day consisted of a scavenger hunt at the Ferry Buildings farmer’s market, the enticingly named Taste Pavilion and the ending gala.
We headed down to the Ferry Building in the morning to start our much anticipated day of all things food. Upon arrival we were given a little spending money (score!) and a list of trivia about local vendors to go solve. Though we’ve been to the Ferry Building farmer’s market a few times (a few of our reviews such as Gott’s and Miette have taken place there), it was a nice way to explore things a bit more in depth.
With the sun shining and the birds chirping (in our heads if not in reality), we headed over to the Metreon complex near the Moscone Center for the Taste Pavilion. Upon entry we realized that we were in trouble. A huge banquet hall stretched in front of us with roughly 40-50 tables lining the sides, each showcasing some sort of food or drink producers. How the hell were we not supposed to stuff ourselves to uncomfortable levels (answer; we weren’t).
We attempted to take good notes but everything seemed to jumble together, mostly due to the wine and beer vendors that were always present. Some of the highlights were:
Red beans and rice served with cornbread. We’re still not sure how this lady packed so much flavor into such simple looking rice, though we suspect witchcraft. The cornbread was fluffy and slightly sweet, the perfect balance to the onion and spice in the rice (we rhymed!).
Halibut in coconut curry. Fresh and flaky, the halibut was served in a light coconut based curry that was delicate enough not to mask the halibut, but produced a light nuttiness that rounded the flavor out nicely.
Reduced sugar mini-cupcakes. Now you won’t find too many “low-cal” “gluten free” or “reduced fat” type dishes in this blog because we are slightly gluttonous, but these were pretty tasty. Some cupcakes are guilty of being overly sweet little sugar grenades, but these were a nice change. Now this is not saying these didn’t have enough sweetness, just that they didn’t make your throat burn after 2 of them (ok, maybe 3). They were slightly moist and with just the right amount of icing so you didn’t look like you had made out with a ghost after you ate them.
King crab. Oh the good stuff. There was almost an incident at this booth since king crab causes Kristina to go into attack mode, but luckily there were no injuries. The crab was sweet and clean, everything you want from one of those scarily large sea spiders. So ugly, yet sooooo tasty.
After testing the limits of our food intake, we retreated back home to rest, digest and fancify ourselves for the impending gala. The gala was held out at the beautiful Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate park. The festival provided bus transport to and from the event, which was quite nice of them, especially considering the number of bars they had available.
Upon entry we were greeted by a host of servers holding trays of small cocktails and bites. The museum looked amazing in the darkness and silence. As we filed downstairs to the aquarium we were met with a scattering of mini bars, cheese platters and beautiful fish silently floating by. The overall feel was very surreal and quite nice.
After mingling with the other bloggers for a while and meeting some really nice people, we headed back upstairs for a buffet style dinner. The food itself was ok, and I don’t think we need to go into it too much, because at this point it didn’t matter. We were in a great location, had free drinks and decent food. We ended the night wandering around the museum checking out the adorable baby ostriches and the albino alligator (yeah, that’s right, an ALBINO ALLIGATOR, so rad!). We ended the night full and content, having experienced our first real perks of being food bloggers and loving every minute of it.
Dig In
A & K