July 16: LA Street Food Fest Returns to The Rose Bowl

The LA Street Food Fest is returning to The Rose Bowl this summer on July 16! Like last year, this festival will feature more than 80 food vendors from food trucks, carts, restaurants, and celebrity chefs.

While last year's event was better than the first, they're trying to make it even better this year crowd-wise by having three limited attendance sessions, capped at 1500 attendees, that promise to treat everyone like VIPs with less lines and crowds. The three sessions are all geared towards different crowds (there's a family picnic event, and there's also a 21+ "date night").


General admission tickets to each event are $60 and you can also get a family pack for you, your SO, and your kid(s).The tickets will cover all the food and drinks including the ice cream lounge, booze (there's a tequila tent) for the 21+ event, and more.

A portion of the proceeds this year will go to the will go to the Downtown Women’s Center, which provides "permanent supportive housing and a safe and healthy community fostering dignity, respect, and personal stability, and to advocate ending homelessness for women."

If you're still thinking, here are some highlights from last year:

mini cemita from Pal Cabron

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David LeFevre's M.B. Post in Manhattan Beach

Some of you would love the bacon cheddar biscuit with maple butter, or caramelized pork jowl, or skirt steak with a bold chimichurri sauce. Some would prefer delicately steamed fish, served atop boiled bok choy and  a subtle sauce, or a light appetizer of couscous mixed the tartness of pomegranates and crunchy marcona almonds. Whichever camp you're in, M. B. Post will satisfy.

Start with a choice of three carbs, each paired with its own spread. Our favorite was the bacon cheddar buttermilk biscuit with maple butter ($5), but we also enjoyed both the fleur de sel pretzel with horseradish mustard ($4) and grilled naan flatbread with harissa yogurt ($4).

Los Angeles Magazine featured his recipe for the bacon cheddar biscuit here.

The cheese and charcuterie board was also impressive with its slew of condiments, from different types of mustards to honeycomb to fruit preserves and pickled vegetables.

Their craft cocktails are $12 each and they have interesting variations on popular classic and tiki drinks. I particularly enjoyed the Avila's Heir (margarita with corralejo reposado, serrano, mandarin, yuzu) and Sun Also Rises (Blood and Sand with Compass Box "Oak Cross", rhubarb, blood orange). I had ordered My Landing Strip (aviation with Hendricks, creme de violet, candied orange) but I thought it had too much creme de violet for my taste.

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Northern Vietnamese Cuisine at Vien Dong (Garden Grove, CA)

To raise money for the earthquake relief efforts in Japan, Wandering Chopsticks led a North to South Vietnamese tour in Little Saigon. I joined her and her readers who had each donated $50 to specific charities for the first parts of the tour. We started at Vien Dong in Garden Grove for Northern Vietnamese food.

While waiting for WC's other readers to arrive, we ordered some Cha Gio (Vietnamese Spring/Egg Rolls). The cha gio here is made with rice paper, which is both crispy yet maintains some chewiness when fried. This is the traditional wrapper used in Vietnam.

Being a long and late day, I had to get some Ca Phe Sua Da. They brought it out in a mini coffee press laying on top of a cup of condensed milk. It wasn't until then that I realize just how much condensed milk is in this drink! No wonder it's so tasty...

We shared an order of Banh Tom which are Vietnamese Shrimp and Yam Fritters with a turmeric batter.

Most of the dishes we tried here were new to me, and among my favorites was the Cha Ca Thang Long (Vietnamese Hanoi-Style Turmeric Fish with Dill)

The best part with going to eat Vietnamese food with WC is of course the knowledge you gain from her. She said that dill is mostly not used in Vietnamese food other than in the Northern part, and this dish originated from a restaurant in Hanoi which became so popular that the street is now named after the restaurant (Cha Ca). Apparently non-Northerners consider using dill strange, but I certainly liked it!

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