Second Annual Foodbuzz Blogger Festival – Tasting Pavilion

I recently flew to San Francisco – one of my very favorite domestic cities – to attend the 2nd Annual Foodbuzz Fest (here’s last year’s write-up).  Follow along for the next two weeks as I recap my weekend trip! 

After the AM breakout sessions, I was dying to try the Alaskan seafood we’d seen demo’d but been unable to try.  It smelled fabulous – well, the halibut did, I Tweet’d my unhappy nose with the smelly salmon – so after Blondie and I walked to the Metreon, we walked straight to the back where they’d set up an area to make your own tacos.  The salmon was all gone when we got there, and I didn’t feel like waiting, so I made myself two tacos with halibut. 

I used different toppings for each, but I couldn’t tell you what they were.  I know a famous chef prepared all the ingredients, and there’s some contest going on right now for best fish taco recipe… but what I remember most clearly about eating each of these two delicious tacos? 

How rich and meaty each piece of fish was.  Dense, moist, perfectly cooked, and I thought, “I need to start stocking halibut in my fridge, but damn that’s good…”

Next on my wandering around was a salad from Fresh Express.  Two things: one, I didn’t know you could toast quinoa, but apparently you can, before you cook it, so thanks for that tip – I’m going to try that.  Two, I’d only ever heard of them before when I went on my Fresh Direct farm tour and in a PR nightmare, someone used the wrong name in an article about Fresh Express’s salad recall (I don’t remember the details of why and do not want to go down the road of retractions).  So I wasn’t too keen on eating the salad, to be honest… even though it was months ago and should be all cleared up now, right? 

Tyler Florence pumpkin soup of sorts – I didn’t try this, but it sure was pretty. 

Love his t-shirt! 

Yummy sausage with BBQ sauce! 

Gazpacho with shrimp. 

Close up – not bad, eh? 

Someone used Nature’s Pride bread to make goat cheese stuffed mushroom caps.   

A little too “goat-y” for me.

Someone else used Nature’s Pride to make BATs… 

Bacon, avocado and tomato! 

Like most things in this world – needs more bacon.  Otherwise, yum!

I also tried chocolates…

half-baked cookie dough balls…

pickled veggies…

And, um, beer.  Beer Boor would be proud – I think – since I tried Hell or High Watermelon Wheat Beer by 21st Amendment and I really liked it.  Enough that I drank two, then asked where I can find it in NYC (yes, it’s findable, though not that easy to find, it’s here… somewhere).  Yum!  The beer taste wasn’t pronounced nor was the watermelon too sweet or, as someone else at the Fest put it, “Jolly Rancher-y” – which made me think of Zach of Midtown Lunch (one of the few times I recall drinking with him, someone denounced a drink as Jolly Rancher-like, and he said “Oh, I think I’d like that, then” or something along those lines, haha.  Either way, I thought this beer was totally drinkable, and perfect for summertime… a long ways away, sigh.

Not pictured: s’mores made with Ghirardelli’s new LUXE MILK line; I didn’t think I’d like them (I’m a dark chocolate kinda gal) but they were perfect!  Still warm, gooey, and what chocolate flavor was I eating… mmm… toffee or almond, I forget.  So good. 

And to cap off my day, a salmon taco with very little salmon (there wasn’t much left and again, I was too impatient to hang around and wait for more).  Yum.  I need to get some halibut to make some tacos… so good.  So, so good. 

Infinitely quotable, Marc of No Recipes told us later: “You go to these things and you walk around and you eat and eat and eat, you eat so much food, but you never feel really full, not like you had a real meal… you’re not satisfied, you know?” (paraphrased because I didn’t write it down, but that was the gist of it)  So true.  I was stuffed but still wanted more food…  Thankfully, dinner was soon. 

Thanks again to Foodbuzz – as a Featured Publisher, the entire event was free.