EAT! Vancouver Food + Cooking Festival
EAT! Vancouver is back again at BC Place bringing together foodies all around Vancouver to try the newest and coolest food products around. Tickets are $14 if you buy online and $16 at the door. Not bad for a full day of food-filled fun.
FYI- this post will be like going to the festival through the eyes of Kirby… a frugal, sample loving Asian chick. Click here for my previous post on EAT! Vancouver 2012.
They have about 250 exhibitors this year so there are lots of things to sample. As well, you can purchase tasting tickets (20 for $10 or 10 for $5) if you want to sample more substantial meals/appys from restaurants like Tacofino and Siddhartha’s Kitchen.
This year, EAT! Vancouver promoted a gluten free brand of nutritious breads and baked goods called All But Gluten.
Meta Knight and I tried the Vanilla Macaroon and Raisin and Cinnamon Bread. They were pretty good for being gluten free.
There was a real health trend going on this year with many vendors promoting their organic, gluten free, soy free, Non-GMO, superfood related products. Granola Girl was one of them.
Daiya sells cheese that are dairy free. You may be thinking, ‘Wait… how can cheese be dairy free?! What are they made of?!”. I googled it for you and I found out that it is made with cassava and arrowroot which are known for their melt-like consistencies.
They wanted to showcase how the ‘cheese’ melts so they were grilling quesadillas and grilled cheeses.
The Daiya ‘cheese’ did indeed melt like real cheese but when you taste it, its pretty evident that its a substitute. If you aren’t lactose intolerant, it’s probably better to stick with the real stuff.
There were many beverage exhibitors promoting health teas, lemonades, ginger ale…etc so Meta Knight and I visited one whenever we were feeling thirsty from eating all the other food samples. 😀 GoodDrink had some really interesting bottled tea including Blueberry White Tea, Honey Lemon Green Tea and Mango Tea with Hibiscus and Vanilla.
Matt & Steve’s were giving out free samples of non-alcoholic Caesars.
It was way too salty (mostly from the salted rim) but it showcased their spicy pickled bean quite nicely.
You could sample products as well as purchase fruits and other cool things at the Urban Fare exhibition.
They were sampling gluten free cookies and loafs from Cloud 9 Bakery.
Who else is a fan of the Dragon’s Den?! If you watch it quite often like me, you may recognize both of these cereals as they originated and became famous from their pitch on that show. The cereal on the right also has a ‘girl version’ too. O.O
I’ve never heard of this restaurant before but it’s apparently a tapas only restaurant called Persona2.
They were giving out very generous amounts of seafood ceviche with tortilla chips. Two thumbs up for taste and generosity!
To finish off our meal of samples, we headed to the OIKOS truck for some greek yogurt. The lineup for this was consistently long throughout the day.
You have a choice of one flavoured greek yogurt and one topping. I chose the Key Lime Yogurt w/ Almond Topping while Meta Knight chose the Strawberry Yogurt w/ Cranberry Topping.
They give you a good serving size of yogurt so this was actually really filling.
I’ve never heard of Coconut Bliss but I’m so glad I have discovered them through this festival because their ice-cream was to-die-for. All of Coconut Bliss’ ice-cream are made with coconut milk so it is dairy free, soy free, gluten free, and has not been genetically modified (non-gmo).
How adorable are these little ice-cream balls and makeshift spoon?? We chose the Strawberry Bliss and Naked Coconut to sample and both of them were amazingly delicious. Every bite had an aftertaste of coconut which I love and the strawberry flavour was SO fresh. Nothing artificial about the taste at all.
We didn’t attend the Wine, Beer & Spirits Tasting Pavilion because it didn’t really interest us but I did hear good things about it. I really enjoyed my second year at EAT! Vancouver and I encourage all foodies and health nuts to give it a try. It’s a great way to sample many new products and enjoy a full day of food!
Happy Eating!
courtesy of http://www.memecenter.com/fun/429370/eat-all-the-samples
Every year when Eat Vancouver comes up, I can't go for some reason… WHY!? Anyway looks like you had a lot of fun ^^ Did you see Janice there?
I know! You needa come back just for this one time haha no I didn't see Janice I think she's in Asia!