First, there's the venue. The Food Event took place yesterday (Sunday) in the grounds of Saddlerock Ranch in the Malibu Hills. It's a beautiful property with grape vines, llamas, horses, zebras etc.
Then, there's the food (of course). A sampling below of some of my faves, clockwise: orechiette with mushrooms and truffles (excellent), octopus carpaccio from Tra di Noi, bison tartare and pheasant mousse from Saddle Peak Lodge, and tuna tartar from Chaya Brasserie.
The beer sponsors served their beverage in their signature beer glasses - which we get to take home. Hmm ... is this a friendly challenge to see how much I can drink? Well, the glasses below are what we ended up taking home :P
And let's not forget the desserts. We had macaroons from La Provence Patisserie, gelato from Gelato Bar, an assortment of excellent pastries from Rustic Canyon, and some amazing blueberry mint lemonade from Lemonade - loved it (then again mint is my true love :P ).
So that was the food and drinks. But that's not all! What really brings this event to the top is all the chef cooking demonstrations (well, and of course, eating their food right after)!
The chef cooking demonstration starts off with Chef David Linville from The Shore, who demonstrated how to make mozzarella from scratch.
After managing to grab some seats, Nancy Silverton set up right in front of us. Best seats in the house :) Known for both Osteria and Pizzeria Mozza, she of course brought some burrata with her.
Then there's Neal Fraser from Grace, cooking up some uni pumpkin risotto!
The Two Dudes (Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo) from Animal on Fairfax made a quick demo of how to make their awesome BBQ ribs. A quick demo of seasoning and putting in the oven - then another quickie of their BBQ sauce (got this on video too, hopefully will put up later!)
Kerry Simon also demonstrated wheat penne pasta, and brought tubs of his famous junk food desserts - we're talking rice krispies, cookies, and kettle corn! Yum!
The awesome afternoon ended with a Cook-off, Top Chef style! Defending her reign after two consecutive wins is Top Chef's Betty Fraser, exec chef of Grub. The challenger is Makoto Okuwa, of the newly opened Sashi in Manhattan Beach (and former assistant of Morimoto in Iron Chef).
Chef Okuwa served up some shrimp-pork-beef Baos with black truffles! Excellent bao, freshly made so the dough is still moist and chewy. The thickness was also just right for me. And let's not forget truffles, which you guys know I love ...
So who do you guys think won? Make a guess and I will let you know later!
wow, quite a post. very nice pictures. looks like it was a great event. wish i was there.
ReplyDeleteuni pumpkin risotto? What the heeze???? So they ran out of water, eh? Let them drink wine!!!!
ReplyDeleteHehe yep. Mm they're both creamy and orange? :P
ReplyDeletePersonally it was too hot for wine (red wine anyway) for me, so beer it is!
we liked Peju a lot when we visited...
ReplyDeleteand that prosciutto thingofmajig looks damn tasty...
i would love to see more photos from the event. do you have any more? or know where i can see some?
ReplyDeleteLooks awesome! I wish I could have been there. **sobs sobs** Next time be sure to remind me so we can go together and have tons of fun! I actually love Chef Fraser ever since the show. So far I have only gone to Harold's *1st Season's winner* restaurant.
ReplyDeleteI'm sad that I missed this, but I will take comfort in that I get to go to French Laundry for FREE! O=)
We will go to Providence when I come back home!
Renee - I do have a few more pictures. I will upload them soon for you, promise!
ReplyDeleteKat - ......
you're just leaving a comment to gloat aren't you? Ou bathard!
Here are some more of the photos, Renee: http://flickr.com/photos/19422533@N08/sets/72157608502966153/
ReplyDeletethank you thank you thank you!
ReplyDelete