We had great fun at Foodies Festival, Syon Park, with taste2taste an official blogger.  We tasted & met some lovely foodies at the street food & drink stands and at the demo theatres. I was joined by guest co-blogger Dein to help taste & here are our highlights of the 3 day festival held over the May Bank Holiday in Syon Park, Brentford, West London.

At the Chef’s Demo theatre Druv Baker, Masterchef Winner 2010 did some fab hosting. We loved the following cookery demo’s: Candice Brown ( Great British Bake off Winner 2016) made a yummy looking rum blueberry Bakewell tart; Saira Hamilton & Juanita Hennessy (Masterchef finalist 2015) made delicious  stuffed paratha & dips & an orange polenta (gluten free) cake;

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jane Devonshire (Masterchef Winner 2016) made some succulent  spiced bhaji king prawns with a coriander yoghurt dip;

We saw Saliha Ahmed (Masterchef Winner 2017) do her first live demo after winning making Aloo Tikki Chana Chaat – Indian street food with some fantastic aromas filling the tent.

 

 

 

 

 

At the Cake & Bake Theatre we saw John Holland  make a scrumptious spotted dick cake with Californian  raisins with the fabulous Charlotte White hosting (see photo at the top).

We had some great food, drink & chat with the exhibitors. Our top 3 drinks:

Rodrigo Bayona founder of  Fruitground showcased some amazing exotic fruits & juices from Colombia.

Our highlight was the refreshing, tangy slightly sour Lulo juice.

We learnt all about some premium craft gins & how best to serve them from Ben  at Garnish Communications & World of Gin.

 

 

 

We sampled some refreshing & flavoursome craft Enefeld  London Pilsner & IPA from Rahul from Enfield Brewery, brewed in North London.

 

Our top 5 foods: We tasted some chilled, savoury, Gazpacho from Alvalle, made in Spain & launched in UK at the festival perfect for a summer lunch or supper. We had a great chat about all things Moroccan with Mohammed, founder of Exotic Tangines and enjoyed sampling the vegetarian & chicken tangines & slow cooked lentils with couscous which was flavoursome with a lovely balance of spices.

We also liked the Arepa, Colombian   Speciality, white cornmeal flatbread stuffed with slow cooked beef, chilli sauce, avocado, cheese & salad . Deliciously soft beef in a fluffy flatbread with all the extras adding layers of flavour & textures.

We really enjoyed Coco Labelle – an  interesting combo of street food inspired by founders roots from Mauritius, Jamaica & Sicily.

We tried the  Mauritian sticky sesame chicken & Jamaican new potato & bean curry with chickpeas, chana dhal & cannelloni beans both accompanied with lentil salad, coriander chutney, pineapple/coconut garnish & hot Jamaican escavitch chilli sauce. Fab tasty food with lots of flavours that worked well together.

For dessert, Dein got his freak on & sweet fix with an Oreo freakshake from Vintage Shake Lab.

 

 

 

We also enjoyed the fab music curated by Success Express Music and although we had a little rain, which made it feel an authentic festival in UK, it did not dampen anyone’s spirits and was a great long weekend. Thanks to Sue, Jeremy, Ava, Lucy, Lorraine, and teams for organising a thoroughly Foodie Festival Experience. Check out the other festivals on the website & check out our taste2taste Instagram to win a pair of VIP tickets so you can have a fab foodie time too ( UK entrants only).

http://www.foodiesfestivals.com/

Cookery Demo Contacts:  @CandiceBrown; @SairaHamilton; @FosburyFoodie; @janecdevonshire; @salihacooks; @Druvbaker1 @BakeOnBoardUK; @restorationcake

Food & Drink & Music Contacts:

http://www.fruitground.com/

http://www.garnishcommunications.com/

http://www.enefeld.com/

http://www.alvalle.es/

http://www.exotictagine.com/

@arepalondon (twitter, Facebook)

http://cocolabelle.co.uk/

http://semusic.org/

@taste2taste