Wednesday, July 13, 2011

LA Street Food Fest Summer Tasting Event, Pasadena,CA, Saturday, July 16, 2011: Baja Cuisine Comes to the Rose Bowl for Street Food's Biggest Day


This Saturday July 16th, the LA Street Food Fest presents its 2nd Annual Summer Tasting Event at the Pasadena Rose Bowl. Attendees can choose the afternoon session(2-5pm) or the party session(6-9pm). $60 gets you in for an all-inclusive experience,$75 for the VIP tent; all you need are your tickets and the bus fare home!

The LA Street Food Fest is bringing the most intensive street food experience ever to Los Angeles. This is the first festival to feature traditional food trucks, veteran carts and stands from the streets and sidewalks of Los Angeles, select survivors of the gourmet truck wars, and the best of LA's ice cream shops. Top LA chefs like chef Ricardo Zarate, chef Andre Guerrero, and chef Dan Moody are rolling up their sleeves and and mixing it up with the likes of Flor de Yucatan, Cocina del Camaguey,and Mariscos Chente's for some old school head cutting. Oh yeah, we are having a cook-off to see who is King, or Queen of the hard-catered streets of Los Angeles.

The all-star judges will be LA Weekly's Jonathan Gold, Food Network's chef Marcela Valladolid, Los Angeles Magazine's Lesley Bargar Suter, chef Walter Manzke, and chef Michael Voltaggio.

This is the fulfillment of all the hard work and ideals put in by the LASFF team, a real street food experience. Close to 70 vendors!

If that weren't enough, they're something no other festival in town could ever even dream of doing. Shawna Dawson of the LASFF asked if I might bring some friends, well, the LASFF has gone international. We're bringing up 3 stars from the most exciting food destination in Mexico in years, Baja California.


Chef Javier Plascencia brings his cutting edge Baja cuisine--a veteran restaurateur with 9 successful restaurants in his portfolio--from Tijuana's Mison 19, Casa Plascencia, Villa Saverios, and Cebicheria Erizo. He is considered one of the best chefs in all of Mexico and was recently featured in the New York Times. Plascencia will appear on the new season of Mexico:One Plate at a Time with Rick Bayless.


Chef Benito Molina is leading the charge in Ensenada's own culinary scene, employing minimalist cooking using the wealth of fine seafood products found in Baja along with local wine and olive oil. He is also considered one of the top chefs in Mexico, and his restaurant Manzanilla is now the set for Molina's hit cooking show on the Utilisima Network, Benito y Solange. Chef Benito Molina was featured on Bizarre Foods Baja with Andrew Zimmern and will also appear on Rick Baylesses PBS program.


But the ultimate score is Ensenada's La Guerrerense. This is a world champion street food stand, and no chef I can think of can create anything more memorable than this humble street cart.


Sabina Bandera has over 50 years at her street cart, forget Kate Middleton, real street food royalty is coming to Los Angeles. This is the woman that does those sea urchin tostadas, sea cucumber, cod, mussels, pismo clams, fish pate, and the best local oysters and clams from top purveyors in Baja.

Sabina on Benito y Solange.

Like chefs make sure to visit El Bulli in Barcelona, or Noma in Copenhagen, they all come to La Guerrerense when in Ensenada.


And Sabina's sea urchin tostada topped with pismo clam, buttery avocado, and her mysterious salsa, chiles de mi jardin? It's unforgettable, it permeates your dreams constantly, dreams of the sublime. It's an urge that makes many customers decide to just drive--because nothing else will do.It's just a little a street cart named desire.

There's no place I'd rather be than the LASFF this Saturday, and nothing is stopping me from getting that tostada. See you on the field.


LA Street Food Fest
Saturday July 16, 2011
Pasadena Rose Bowl
2 sessions: 2-5PM and 6-9PM
$60 All-Inclusive, get your tickets today.

2 comments:

LA hot ice cream said...

Too bad it is already over, do you have any plan again organizing street food by the end of the year? Please let me know, thank you.

streetgourmetla said...

Will do LA hot ice cream!Please stay tuned.