Last year’s show featured many of the same vendors and proprietors as this year, so I will focus more on some of the newer stuff, in addition to the products and items that I found to be personal favorites of the day. For some, I even wrote separate product reviews.
Okay so now it’s photo dump time. I haven’t edited ANY of these photos, so they might be dark on occasion. There were just too many to bother with that bullshit.
I will highlight certain items as I go, like these bottles of ready-made ramen broth by Kubara. They offered shio (salt), shoyu (soy) and yuzu shio (citrus salt) flavors. All were pretty good, but I liked the shoyu (soy sauce) the best. All broths are based in seafood and kelp, but I was blown away by the depth of flavor they had!
Contrast this with Ariake, a concentrated ramen broth, bone stock and sauce vendor. Just add water to dilute and create the goods.
The Chaat Co created these savory yogurt snack cups with puffed lentil toppings based on Indian street snack food. They were really nice, and no excess sugars.
Parm Crisps are pretty self explanatory. Very tasty crackers made entirely from cheese and spice flavorings.
Green Mustache veggie and fruit drinks.
Peanut Punch by YourPanadas was like liquid, milky peanut butter. SO GOOD!
There were some nice shochu vendors in the Japanese section. I liked Window’s un-aged mugiichi best.
This sweet potato “Hebess Cool” was refreshing! Great for summer, or even to mix into a margarita.
More Good was an excellent syrup flavor company for more natural sodas and fountain drinks:
But this one, Cocktail & Sons, had some extremely interesting stuff for making cocktails. The herbs and spices used in the syrup making process were unique and flavorful.
True Made Foods makes some awesome sauces and ketchup. I’m writing a separate review for these products, because I have more than one line to say here. The sauces are naturally sweetened by using other vegetables in the process. Brilliant.
Uniquely Greek feta spreads are immensely flavorful.
Superior Farms was here last year as well, but this lamb bacon was incredible. I wish I got a pic of the actual bacon.
THREE LITTLE PIGS!!! I’ve seen this stuff in markets before, and always wanted to try. They make amazing mousses, pates, jams, mustards and other sorts of items in that vein.
Imitation caviar?!??!?!? I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. It tasted like fish eggs to me! But it is made using molecular gastronomy techniques.
Brandt offered some excellent beef jerky. I’ll be writing a separate review for this as well, but the texture was tender, and the orange teriyaki was my favorite flavor.
Look at this hunk of wagyu they had in their showcase…
D’artagnan was set up again, this time carving up some delicious cured Mangalica ham:
By the way, here’s a giant sack of pink Himalayan salt that I almost stepped on:
Another highlight of this food show is the baking or pastry sculpting competition that goes on in the back. Check out these entries (I am guessing that the theme was magic):
I think that about covers it. I have some product reviews to write up after all of this sampling. One company, Total Kitchen Safety, is sending me a chain mail, ring-mesh glove for use in butchering meats and slaughterhouses. It is armor for your hands so you don’t cut yourself. I’m really looking forward to getting my hands on that for a product review.
