As I mentioned in my
last Flavrbox review, I was lucky enough to win tickets to head over to
Taste of London in Regent's Park on Friday. Not only did it let me have a pretty nice, long weekend, but generally it was a pretty nice day out all in all and I had a great time.
Neither myself or my Gran expected that we would be able to spend a full four hours at a food festival, but we did, it was actually really easy to get sucked into the realm of free samples and there was a little more to it than we had thought. My Gran got to make dim sum with
Ping Pong, we saw
Michel Roux Jr totally slumming it at his restaurant's stall and I got to try
so many different kinds of cheese!
I don't think I've ever been to Regent's Park before and there sure were a fair few pretty flowers in bloom, it's just a shame that the late warm whether has meant there's still so much yet to come out.
Ping Pong's Dim Sum masterclass.
Some seriously exciting freebies!
There was a huge Thai section, with all kinds of fancy food and exotic fruit as well as some traditional Thai displays.
Amazing Fruit-Artist.
Tasty Tempura.
It was pretty funny how my Gran was all about the freebies, especially the ones that didn't have a queue. Pretty sure just before she got this she was telling how much she didn't really like frozen yoghurt...
Rolled pizza giveaway!
Display from Duck & Waffle, including an ox-cheek donut.
After making a concerted effort to actually find somewhere to eat rather than graze on samples, we ended up with a steak sandwich and a beer from Santa Maria del Sur. The steak was traditional Argentinian steak and the sauce was really good, Argentinian food isn't something I've thought about before but will definitely be on the look-out for from now on, especially since there seemed to be so much Argentinian cuisine on offer and London isn't somewhere that has a shortage of places to choose from either.
The Producers Market was awesome, definitely the hub of all the free samples - I tried mint chocolate-flavoured tonic water, about 5 different types of olive oil and this is where I consumed the majority of the cheese I tried that day.
Just a bottle of £16.50 balsamic vinegar...
Very encouraged by Joe & Seph's Cheese on Toast Popcorn, definitely want to try more of their range now.
A chocolatier who works for Lindt and was trained by a Lindt Master Chocolatier but is not a Lindt Master Chocolatier...
I must admit that I'm unsure of the usual £28 price tag being worth it given that you also have to put more money towards 'crowns' - the official currency of Taste of London - in order to get some real food, and given that the 'real food' on offer was more of a taster menu than regular-sized portions, there is a part of me that feels it was a little stingy.
However, as a prize, it was pretty top notch and for the atmosphere and something completely out of the ordinary, I'm totally happy to have gone and would still recommend it. Unfortunately we weren't able to take part in any wine tasting or big cook offs because they were all fully-booked, they're definitely things I'd check out first if I went again, I've never been wine tasting before but it sure sounds like fun.
I've made a
full set on Flickr, but if you've been reading for a while, you probably know that I'm pretty bad at editing down images as it is so it's pretty similar to what you see here.
Have you ever been to a food festival? What did you think - Taste of London totally has me thinking a little bit about Jamie Oliver & Alex James' Big Feastival at the end of August.
