Thursday, July 26, 2012

The 4-Day LA Food and Wine Festival Returns Aug 9-12, Recap of 2011 Lexus Grand Tasting

The LA Food and Wine Festival is a four-day extravaganza with various lunches and dinners around town featuring celebrity chefs, with two days of a grand tasting event on Saturday and Sunday. This year's events include an Italian fiesta with Giada, an Asian Night Market with Bizarre Foods host Andrew Zimmern, a champagne and caviar night, and dinners with Graham Elliott, Ming Tsai, the Voltaggio brothers, Michael Chiarello, etc.The full event listing can be seen here, and you can buy tickets for each event separately.

Oh, let's not forget the most important part. These events benefit St. Vincent's Meals on Wheels. They provide about 3000 meals a day for seniors!

Last year, thanks to Lexus, I was lucky enough to attend a lunch featuring the Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto at WP24, and one of the Lexus Grand Tasting Event. While most of the food festivals in LA features LA's best chefs and restaurants, the Lexus Grand Tasting Event brings some from out of town, so we get to try food from some of the best in the country. This year's out-of-town list includes Gale Gand from Tru (Chicago), Francois Payard, and Stephan Pyles.

Here are some photos from last year's Lexus Grand Tasting:

Duroc Pork Tenderloin, corn pudding, gremolata or bacon and corn, blackberry cipollini by Bradley Ogden's root 246.





The Lexus lounge is definitely worth a visit, offering some of the more luxurious items like foie gras (well, I guess not this year...), lobster, and truffles.

Foie gras lollipops, almonds, cocoa nibs, banana cotton candy

Late harvest corn soup, lobster beignet, bacon powder

Some fun cocktails too, like this smoked whisky concoction.
Meatballs from M.B. Post's David LeFevre
A shooter from Michael Mina:

There are also plenty of wines, of course. The dessert wine from Bonny Doon Vineyard is always a treat for me.
 Gruet from Albuquerque, New Mexico, famous for their sparkling wines. It was perfect for the hot weather!

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