Shophouse tasty and Gluten Free

Owned by Choptle.

I was given some free cards to try them out.

Pretty good and all Gluten Free

I like the  meatballs the best

Newport Beach Wine and Food Fest Tops

I always forget to take a photo of the best taste at a food fest. That’s because I gobbled it up before I think of snapping one.

That’s how it was with Crow Bar’s Black Label slider. Very juicy and served with cooked sautéed onions, it was the best of Saturday’s Tasting event.

Black Crows DEVILED EGG

The Newport Beach Food and Wine Festival held its first ever event. It didn’t attract the high end chefs and restaurants as would LA Food and Wine or even LA Times The Taste. It was a mixture of chain restaurants, food trucks and catering services, and even event venues such as the Honda Center.

Fresh from his visit to Macau, Chef Pascal Olhats brought a minchi dumpling and his take on egg tarts, a staple in Macau. Olhats also gave a demonstration outdoors on how to make minchi. Beautiful, yeah?

He was quite an ambassador for the region, talking about his trip and encouraging guests to travel there.

I concur. As far as cuisine, it was some of the best food I’ve had in my life. I used to audit Kimpton restaurants so I do have knowledgeable taste buds. My best overall meal ever was at Manuel’s on Taipa island. As mentioned before here, even a chef and FB manager were avid fans.

Here’s a look at some other tastes from the festival.

Newport Beach Food and Wine Festival to consider

There’s some rethinking to happen for the Newport Beach Food and Wine Festival.

Don’t get me wrong—for an attendee, the opportunity to taste everything that’s offered and not feel like it’s Comic-Con for food was great. There were no long lines—few lines, if any. And plenty of food and drink. And if you really liked something, you could go back and find it was still available. There was no Sophie’s Choice about which chef or restaurant to choose.

The set up was a problem however. First lawns and sternos don’t mix. Unfortunately there was a small fire at a booth. Quickly put out, but when the wind picked up—the event was held at the Newport Beach Civic Center with all the cooking booths outside—it fueled the flames. And then was on the outer section. Think what would could have happened if that occurred in the much tighter spaced tented area. Fire Marshalls are present at the larger festivals like LA Food and Wine and LA Times The Taste but mainly are checking for overcrowding. For this to be an issue on their doorsteps…

Attendance was moderate—most of the people picking at food were the volunteers. And they weren’t held back until a given time. The volunteers were the first to stop at each booth—the established fests would not have that. In fact, some may require that the volunteers change clothes. In my press memo, the information stated that it was a “world class” event in reminding people to dress appropriately. Neither attendees nor volunteers got that memo.

There was an outer area which opened at 11AM. Then there was the inner tent that opened from 12-3. The chefs were ready to go prior to that and some people popped into the area before the official open. There were also several tables present for a short period of time. And not all of the tables were food or wine.

People at the front asked that the wine glasses be returned. Never heard that one before.

I saw the media check-in people flip through the press list. It was quite extensive. I’m wondering how many people actually paid.

The fact that people were able to interact—sometimes too loosely for my taste—with chefs giving seminars was great. Sommeliers gave several presentations over the weekend which was great.

With some minor modifications, Newport Beach Food and Wine Festival can be the world class event it purported to be.

Macanese Cuisine Highlights Newport Beach Food Wine Fest

At the first ever Newport Beach Food and Wine Festival, the Macau Tourism board will present Chef Pascal Olhats preparing minchi as well as egg custard tarts.

The Macau Government Tourism office sponsored chefs including Olhats, owner of Café Jardin, on a special tour of Macau. There Chef learned about preparing traditional Macanese food, a unique blend of Portuguese, Chinese, and other influences from seafaring nations.

Olhats will also present a unique cooking demonstration on Saturday highlighting some of the methods and tastes he picked up from the trip.

MGTO is one of the sponsors of the NBFW Fest, happening this weekend at the Newport Beach civic center. 

It’ll be interesting how the presenters are setting the event up. Supposedly there are several components of the event, with a pavilion set up for unique tastes including $100-$200 wines.

Here’s more from MGTO and the festival:

Chef attended three cooking courses to learn how to prepare traditional Macanese food. Under the guidance of Chef Raimund Pichlmaier and Chef John Chan, he learned how to make a range of appetizers and soups including lacassa soup, chillicotes, deep fried wontons, turnip cake among many other dishes. For the main course, he learned to make African chicken, minchi, pork balichão and other tasty traditional recipes. For the Chef’s last cooking class in Macau, he worked alongside Chef Hans Rasmussen in preparing a Macanese buffet dinner.

Chef Pascal will be participating in the Newport Beach Wine and Food Festival on September 20-21 from 11am to 5pm at the Macau food tent. He will be distributing samples ofhis version of Minchiand Portuguese egg tarts for guests and chefs to try, and will also be doing a 45-minute cooking demonstration on September 20 from 2:25pm-3:05pm.

Should We Expect Cleanliness At Foodie Events

So at a foodie event, the reps from a West Hollywood establishment were very high-energy, motivated, keeping it fun.

The woman high-fived attendees who were about to dig into the bites offered. And then the woman plated food. No gloves, no sanitizing.

It was kind of gross. And think how many high-fives and how many little bites plated and therefore how many germs passed on from person to person.

I’m thankful that LA Times The Taste is on the Paramount lot because there are easily accessible, installed restrooms. Not to say that LA Food and Wine Festival didn’t have higher end portable potties available—they did and were quite nice. Just to be clear, The Taste did have portable ones as well as their existing restrooms available.

There are gloved hands underneath the tray!!

I brought sanitizer and wipes. And before I got off the bus for the daytime activities, I hopped to Target or Vons to wash my hands. 

As a seasoned Con goer, I know that people are pigs. They don’t wash their hands, they slobber over themselves, they go to the restroom and wipe their ass, and come out with feces and urine on their hands, and eat and touch everything. And that can go directly to you.

Yuck!

This woman was the exception because most were very conscious about using gloves. Health Department officials would stroll around occasionally.

An attendee can protect themselves as much as possible but it is a partnership on those offering the bites that what they are offering won’t bite people back.

LA Times The Taste: Sunday Finale

It was way too hot for me to fight the heat Saturday day. Though I felt regret and admonished myself for being lazy, I knew that I would be walking around dying in the hot sun at LA Times The Taste.

I was pretty incoherent after a couple hours on Saturday in the sun.

My stomach was ready for the nights marquee event, Flavors of LA.

There was squid but no octopus like the previous night.

And my first choices proved their merit: Bibigo and David LeFevre did not disappoint. Does LeFevre ever?

A food truck, Bibigo is an expanding philosophy, bringing traditional Korean food in a healthy way.

This was so good. Perfectly spiced with fresh ingredients their Bibimba---vegetables over rice topped with a fresh egg or meat--was wonderful

They started late so I had to rush back.

But not before I stopped at Chef LeFevre representing Fishing with Dynamite and Manhattan Beach Post. He brought this wonderful concoction--so multilayered in tastes but just good, down-home tasting as well.

I loved how the egg juice oozed over the shrimp grits. Very fine!

One thing people did not enjoy was the incredibly spicy offering from Jitlada.

People in line next to me were complaining about them.

Thank God for Mr. Chow's tofu noodles to cool our mouths down--they were next door.

And Worldwide Tacos always has outstanding tacos.

I think Lum Ka Naad Thai restaurant got tired--they served up a tasty rice dish Saturday day but this was pretty awful. I did see a whole table enjoy this but my sausage chunk was hard and cold.

Another winner for me was Bar Pinxto's Lamb Paella! Wow-that was good.

The press reps were so helpful to me--especially after I stupidly left my press badge at home and I texted Diana frantically as soon as I got off the subway. I felt really bad especially because I pointed out several fake journalists to her--and unfortunately one still got it under someone else's credentials. Damn that, Rosie Pearsons. She's just a leech of society--and of events.

The Taste coincides with three Fan events--Fan Expo Canada, DragonCon, and Pax West--but they all don't taste as good as The Taste.

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