devora
"As real as a food fest gets"
Where gourmands come to meet/eat.
As real as a food fest gets
-
Sep 26, 2011
- by devora
- posted in Gourmand
Rating:
I'm not typically a festival or street fair-goin' gal, but when there's this quality of food involved -- I'm more than willing to brave the crowd and wait in line to get my nom on!
+5
Eat Real held its third annual food fest this weekend with the same success that they had in the previous couple of years. The set up is a win-win situation for all. Located in Oakland's Jack London Square, adventurous eaters can enter the festival free of charge and nosh on a fantastic variety of food -- a lot of which are of the gourmet, natural, organic and/or local variety. The best part? Every food item is priced at $5 or less. On the vendor end -- they get to expose their business to about 100,000 festival goers.
The portions at Eat Real are larger than a sample, but not large enough to be a full dish. Even so, those portions will sneak up on you. So to combat the issue that I had last year of not being able to try as many things as I would've liked since I got so full, I came up with something super genius... Split everything with a friend. Stomach space is valuable real estate when it comes to the Eat Real Fest.
There were dozens of food and drink vendors there, so ground rules needed to be set about how to go about choosing vendors. The one that we were most strict about: the food has to be something that would be hard to get anywhere else. That means not going to the Chipotle stand (they, and Whole Foods, were some of very few non-independent business vendors there), and not going to any vendors that have restaurants close by that I can go to any old day (that didn't stop others though! ;).
Between one other friend and I, we split over a dozen different things. Here's some of what we had...
Pizza Politana
Wood fired pizza -- Housemade garlic pork sausage, county farm arugula, mozzarella and tomato sauce. Roasted mushrooms, parmesan, caramelized onions, thyme and truffle oil.
Ebbett's Good to Go
Cuban sandwich -- Niman Ranch slow roasted pork, gruyere cheese, ham, chipotle, aioli and jalapeno relish on Acme roll.
Wood fired pizza -- Housemade garlic pork sausage, county farm arugula, mozzarella and tomato sauce. Roasted mushrooms, parmesan, caramelized onions, thyme and truffle oil.
Ebbett's Good to Go
Cuban sandwich -- Niman Ranch slow roasted pork, gruyere cheese, ham, chipotle, aioli and jalapeno relish on Acme roll.
The Rib Whip
Ribs
14 hour smoked pulled pork slider
Brass Knuckle
Fried chicken slider
S'more Bar
Crack -- salted caramel peanut butter shortbread
Good Foods BBQ
Pork belly slider -- mixed greens, tomato jam, pickled onions, spicy aioli
Pulled chicken slider -- spicy slaw, bbq sauce
Whole Foods
Grilled figs with feta and almond
Noci Gelato
Salted chocolate with caramel and plum jalapeno sorbetto
Fat Face Popsicles
Plum basil green tea, and lime and avocado
I split all of this amazingness (and everything was truly amazing), and then some, with one other friend, who's also a girl who's around 100 pounds. Needless to say, we were both stuffed. I, in particular, felt like I was going to explode. My friend and I had taken public transportation to the event and afterward, were offered a ride back to the BART station, but we opted to walk instead to aid in digestion and to burn off some of those calories that we had just consumed. In fact, we were so full and felt the need to walk it off so much that we walked past two BART stations before finally boarding at the third one.
So was this food worth feeling like I was going to explode? Um, heck yes!
Tips for those of you planning on visiting next year:
- Don't eat breakfast or lunch beforehand. Heck, don't even eat the day before.
- Take public transportation. Parking is near impossible. Even the paid lots are full.
- Survey all of the vendors before making wise decisions on what to get.
- Only get foods that would otherwise be difficult to get. Avoid the Chipotle stand.
- Share with several friends.
- Bring tupperware.
- Wear stretchy pants.
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JSMaresca
September 29, 2011
Fine food and the photos are excellent !
devora
September 30, 2011
Thank you, J! :)
JSMaresca
October 03, 2011
You are very welcome.
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Scotman
September 28, 2011
You walked past two BART stations? You have stamina! I heard about this festival on the news the other day. Great photos. I am a festival goin' guy and can really see this was popular. Great review.
devora
September 28, 2011
Thanks! Oh, I've walked waaaay further than that before, and had I not been in such a food coma, I probably would've walked all 10 miles back to my car in El Cerrito (I'm totally serious -- I did, after all, do Tough Mudder ;) I'm surprised you didn't go to this. Definitely check it out next year!
Scotman
September 28, 2011
Wow! I've been busy with lots of personal projects but I will make the effort next time. :)
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woopak_the_thrill
September 26, 2011
wowwww...I mean that Cuban sandwich looks awesome and pizza is always a plus. Have you tried grilled pizza? It is actually pretty good. It just gets the cheese at the bottom instead of the top...
devora
September 26, 2011
Those were both amazing! The Cuban with the gruyere was like whoooa and so was the pizza with the truffle oil on it! I've actually grilled my own pizza before! But I don't think I've experienced it with the cheese at the bottom...
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About the reviewer
devora (devora)
Ranked #1
Ranked #1
When I'm not Lunching, I'm a jeweler, and an all around, self-proclaimed web geek. My passions include social media, the interweb, technology, writing, yoga, fitness, photography, jewelry, fashion, … more
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