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

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LA Street Food Fest Summer Tasting, Back on July 21

The LA Street Food Fest returns to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena on Saturday, July 21. The full vendor lineup hasn't been released yet, but usually the vendors from previous years would come back, so check out last year's highlights to know what to expect!

The term "Street Food Fest" has been defined pretty loosely, since now it's not just food carts/stalls/trucks, but also various restaurants and dessert shops participating.

And it's not just LA, the Food Fest also brought some of the best from Baja, including the uni tostada from La Guerrerense in Ensenada. They may just be making a repeat appearance this year. This little seafood cart has been featured many TV shows recently, so if you haven't had the time to drive down to Baja, try it locally at the food fest!

One of the best chefs in Baja, Javier Plascencia is also coming back this year. Last year he brought a lot of goodies, including these grilled oysters topped with sea asparagus. I don't know why the line wasn't longer at this booth, but hey, better for me.

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East LA Meets Napa Returns July 20! A Preview, and Last Year's Recap

East LA Meets Napa is a unique event in Los Angeles. This event showcases some of the best Mexican restaurants in the city, along with some of the best wines either owned or operated by Hispanics in Napa Valley. The proceeds go to benefit AltaMed, which provides free health services to those in need, and support for single teenage mothers in East LA. What was at first a small event has grown to one of the biggest and most anticipated event of the year, and there's now less than 300 tickets left for this year's event!

They held a press preview at John Sedlar's Playa Restaurant and featured food and wine from a few of the event participants.
Chef Rocio Camacho of Rocio's Moles de los Dioses served a Chapulines and avocado taco

This taco was my favorite of the day. If you can get past your reservations about eating grasshoppers, this is a simple but amazing taco.
Empanadas tres soles: huitlacoche, flor de calabaza (squash blossoms), y potosina

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