East Bay Food Fight

I'm loving the East bay food scene. We have Plum's late night dining menu, a bunch of local breweries, Bakesale Betty's fried chicken, Chez Panisse and many more. This event makes me fall in love with East Bay even more.

Line at Cocina Poblana for their Mole

Rudy's Can't fail cafe failed me with their salad. I'm hoping for some burgers since that's what they are good at.

East Bay Food Fight is a food event the showcase about 40 great restaurants around the east bay. They have tastings for each restaurants that should basically tell us what they're all about. I love the idea since I haven't eaten on most of the restaurants there and this kinda gives me an idea of what kind of food they serve and if they're good.

To make things more exciting there were 6 east bay chefs that fought Iron chef style. They cooked based on their given theme (Summer Picnic, Dinner date and Dessert Nostalgia). Another reason why I was excited is because Alice Waters, Anya Fernald and Gather's Sean Baker are part of the judges. I don't know what happened to Alice Waters but I didn't see her there so I was a bit disappointed.

The battleground

Judges tasting the food. "That's not Alice Waters" - line I kept on hearing from the audience.

Among the restaurants that I was looking forward to was Baywolf, Bocanova, Chop Bar, Flora, Pican, Five and Hibiscus. The food was good. I didn't find anything out of this world but they were good and satisfying food, nothing fancy. Home of Chicken and waffles were serving guess what? Chop Bar roasted a whole pig which is basically "lechon". Ozumo did a salmon salad. I wasn't expected Tay Ho's rice crepe dish but it was one of my favorite. I loved all the dishes from the Kitchen of Champions especially their bread pudding with rum sauce.

Here are the pics from the event:

Tay Ho - Rice crepe wrap with crispy shallots

Hibiscus - Fried plantains. I wish there's ice cream with this!

Hibiscus - Hibiscus drink

Chop Bar - roasted pig "Lechon". Crispy skin please!

Bocanova - Quinoa salad with summer squash and corn. I love this dish! fresh and tastes like summer

From the Kitchen of champions

Kitchen of Champions - N'Orleans Bread Puddin' with Rum sauce. This was very good!

Ozumo - salmon salad

with Edamame

Xolo - chile verde tostada

Kincaid's - Homemade corn bread with smoked tiger prawns.

The Grand Tavern - Duck pate with beet salad

Miss Pearl's Jamhouse - Jambalaya

Probably good. I didn't taste it. They ran out of Pork! :(

 
This was great event that benefits the Society of St. Vincent de Paul's Kitchen of champions culinary program. They help out people get out of poverty and pursue their culinary dreams. I hope they'll do this again next year with more exciting dishes and great restaurants involved!

Food Truck Frenzy at the Rock Wall Winery

Besides the monthly antique fair in Alameda, I'm thrilled whenever food trucks come to the island. This is the first food truck and wine event at the Rock Wall Winery and all I can say is that it rocks. We went just to grab dinner not expecting anything. On the way to the winery is part of the experience. It's in the middle of nowhere. It's close to the naval base so you'll see huge ships around plus the winery has spectacular views of the San Francisco skyline.  As we enter this huge 40,000 sg ft. plane hangar converted into a winery we heard music playing. We were surrounded by wine barrels. There were couches, tables and chairs. It's a huge lounge area and in front of you were the food trucks.

Lounge area

Not your normal plastic table and chairs 

Love the setting

Emapandas. I think Red Ribbon is better. It's a bit overpriced for me too.

Flavored shaved ice

Pretty good funnel cake

Not a food truck but a food bus. There's seating inside too.

There's a handful of food vendors. There's the traditional $1.50/taco truck, a Cuban sandwich truck, emapanadas, shaved ice, hot dogs, funnel cakes and of course a selection of wines to pair with your food. What really got me excited was the Bacon Bacon truck. I didn't expect to see this truck at the event. There's a lot of buzz about this truck since It's SF's first Bacon truck. I checked the menu and everything has bacon in it.This is definitely where our dinner will be coming from.

SF's 1st.

Even the menu smells like bacon

We got the Pork belly sandwich and the double patty burger with bacon. It was pretty good. I liked the pork belly better because it has different flavor combination. The only thing we didn't like was the 1 hour wait time to get our food. 20 minutes to get our order and another 40 to get it. It's probably because they're new and they didn't expect that much people. It could also be that there only competition I think was the Le Truc food truck. There's nothing really exciting about the menu from the other food trucks so I'm guessing everyone's tummy were telling them to get some bacon.





1 hour to get your bacon fix



Burger with 2 patties, bacon and caramelized onions

Pork Belly with egg, caper aioli and arugula

This was a pretty cool event. Wine, food trucks, music and the view were the perfect combination for this great event and I'm happy it's here in my neighborhood.

Summer Celebration by Cuesa

Tonight, I attended Cuesa's Summer event rather than volunteering. It feels good to be on the other side just enjoying food for 2 hours. There's a lot of people but not too crowded. There's no rush, me and my wife were able to taste almost all the dishes and just enjoy the freshest ingredients and the different flavor combinations these restaurants have to offer.

Whole beast carving station. Happy Pig!

My favorite drink! Blackberry swizzle from Elixir

This is event was packed with SF's most talented chefs. All the dishes were amazing. Each booth tells you where they got their fresh ingredients from. It makes you feel good that you are eating the freshest ingredients sourced from the Ferry building farmer's market. For me the highlights were the Buttermilk Panna Cotta with berries from Scala's bistro, Soy tofu cheesecake from Ozumo, Roasted pork with chiles, lime and stone fruit from 4505, Tomato Gelee with buratta from Cotogna and the Panna Gelato from Beretta. Here are the pictures to recap almost everything me and my wife ate that night.

Tofu cheesecake, fried tofu skin and berries from Ozumo. This was really surprisingly good. It's like "taho" cheesecake.

Summer salad from Origen. The restaurant is opening in August 2011 in Berkeley



Marinated squid, pickled melon and padron peppers from Blue Plate



Marinated sardines, charred peppers and olives from Gitane

Smoked boysenberry, cream soda float and cinnamon cracker from La Victoria bakery

Summer squash tacos from Nopalito

Seared Shiro Maguro Tataki from Ichi Sushi

Fish Po'boy from Marketbar

Plum salad from Millenium. Hodo Soy Tofu, sweet 100's, cucumber, kaffir lime dressing

Buttermilk Panna Cotta with Peaches from Scala's Bistro.

Duck Prosciutto, smoked plum, mushrooms and onions from Bon appetit Management Co

Chicharrones

Radish, stone fruit and lime

Finished product. 4505's roasted pork tacos with stone fruit slaw topped with chicharrones

Strawberry sliders with honey mascarpone and caramelized blackberries from One Market

Cotogna's Tomato Gelee with Buratta. Most interesting dish for me. It tastes different than it seems. Very creative and great presentation.

Chicken cracklings, shaved zucchini and watercress from Flour+Water

Papa al Pomodoro - traditional Tuscan tomato soup from Delarosa

Salmon rillette from Serpentine.

Beretta's Panna Gelato with extra virgin olive oil and sea salt. Creamy Gelato. One of the best!

Tacolicious' Adobo marinated skirt steak.

"Green eggs and Lamb" - lamb belly, wasabi tobiko on a brown rice crepe - Gastronaut

House cured anchovies with salsa verde from Barbacco

Poached cod on a zucchini bread with mint cilantro chutney from Technique at the CCA.

Duck confit with shiso, walnut duck butter and cherry chutney. They are hiding on the cherries! Great presentation

Pork sandwiches with Arugula from Bix

To summarize, it was an evening of duck goodness with prosciutto and confit, stone fruits, berries on almost everything, sardines and anchovies and the smell of roasted pork all over the ferry building. It's truly a celebration of what Summer has to offer!