Foodbuzz Fest - Round 2

 

In my last post I shared some pictures from my first day in San Francisco for the third annual Foodbuzz Food Blogger Festival. I had already spent my Friday sight seeing and then attending the Sabra hummus tasting and blogger awards. Saturday started bright and early for a totally exciting day. It started with classes on improving your blog presented by successful food bloggers. This was our fabulous lineup! Not a bad start to a day.

Then I got to meet one of my favorites!! This is Chuck Lai from Foodgawker. If you've never been to Foodgawker then PLEASE do! I was so excited and he was so nice to take a picture with me. I could tell it was going to be an awesome day.

Sessions continued with giant pictures of food in every class. What a hard day huh?

After the featured panel and the two classes, it was 12 and time to head over to The Metreon for the Taste Pavillion. The Taste Pavillion is an awesome set-up for food and drink vendors to get their products out there and network with us.

A line of hungry food bloggers were greeted by an amazing view of the city and more than 70 vendors standing at booths just waiting for us to try their products. It was a beautiful sight.

After all the sampling I decided to circle back one more time to makes sure I didn't miss anyone then I saw him; Tyler Florence was just sitting there! How did I miss the line to meet him that I'm sure formed as soon as he stepped in the room?? I begged to get in line but the worker told me it was already cut off so three girls let me cut in front of them as long as I took their pictures. Umm, hell yes! So that's literally the story of how I got to meet the tallest, cutest, sweetest, chef in the world.

Look at him eying that free drink. Yes he took it. Yes it was awesome.

This man is seriously tall.

After this and not being sure if I wanted to cry or scream and restraining both urges, Mike and I went back to the hotel. I was free until later that night when we would be able to see Tyler Florence do a live cooking demo presented by Alexia Foods. Everyone showed up looking cute, ready to see him cook. While waiting, we were presented with the new Alexia fries that our bloggers had come up with. Delish!

I was able to meet some really amazing food bloggers. This me, Ally from A Girl and Her Fork, Debbie from A Feast for the Eyes, and Josh from Just Eat.

Here is Dorothy from Crazy for Crust, Allie from Eat at Allie's, me, and Ally. Can you believe we're all from the Sacramento area and I had never met any of them before?

Our table (that I may or may not have ran to) was in the front and right next to the stage where the demo would be. There were samosas and butternut squash risotto bites and wine - lot's of wine. The waiters never let our glasses empty, so I technically only had one glass :)

Then the demo started. He cooked pan seared pork chops with spaetzle and red cabbage. Oh my goodness it smelled so good. He talked about food, his kids, and The Great Food Truck Race, of which I am an avid watcher. Then he wrapped up with a Q and A.

There are so many beautiful things about this picture.

Tyler stopped his Q&A to let us eat (personally I would have eaten a bowl of cereal just to hear him talk longer but....) For dinner we were served a deconstructed salad, Filet Mignon with prawns and veggies, and a dessert trio.

The night didn't quite wrap at 10 for some of us. A few of us (Just Eat, My Veggie Table, cough cough) offered to take the wine the staff was going to toss out and drink it. We're such good foodies. LUCKILY for us, Saturday night was when we turned our clocks back so we got an extra hour of drinking sleep. To make it better, the next morning was our farewell brunch at Perry's right on Embarcadero.

There were lot's of breakfast basics and the view of the Bay Bridge was completely amazing. I was told it was going to be raining all weekend but you would never have know if you looked at our view.

The (old) Bay Bridge and Embarcadero St.

I had an absolutely amazing time in San Francisco. This was unlike anything I had ever done and I'll definitely be doing it again. I met amazing people, tried amazing food, and got lot's of cool gifts that I'm still in the process of trying. This was extraordinary food experience

Until next time my fellow foodies... Cheers!

Holy Foodbuzz!! It's Just the Beginning....

This year I was able to go to Foodbuzz's third annual Foodbuzz Festival in San Francisco. To catch you up real quick, it's a weekend long foodie festival starting on Friday night with a welcome dinner. It starts again bright and early Saturday morning with classes taught by (successful) fellow food bloggers, or celebrities in my eyes. I'm talking Foodgawker, Peas and Thank You, Joy the Baker, Shutterbean, and so many more (but I'm too lazy to put the links so I'll give you my favorites). Following the classes we were able to attend the Taste Pavilion at The Metreon where all you do is sample new foods by up-and-coming food and beverage providers and network with them...and eat....BUT one thing that a foodie like me wanted to die over was a surprise appearance from TYLER FLORENCE!!!!!!

I probably would have been fine going home after this but I didn't dare because later that night he was scheduled to do a cooking demo for us sponsored by Alexia foods and dinner was going to be provided as well (Filet Mignon to be exact). Sunday the festivities wrapped up with a farewell brunch sponsored by the godly chocolate brand Godiva. As of now, I'm in a bind because a boat-load of people are going to be talking about this in the blogging world and I don't want to bore anyone with my "look at my fun weekend" posts but this is a food blog so I figured I'd skip the sight seeing pictures and show you the food I found myself surrounded by. And trust me there's a lot. It seems like whenever I started to think about food, Foodbuzz force-fed me with the best of the best...usually. For this, I am thankful. 

When Mike and I got to San Francisco on Friday we checked into our old scary historic hotel and left (immediately). I checked in with Foodbuzz to get my swag bag, and super awesome badge, then I was free until six. We decided to start our culinary adventure and get some food. Our goal was to only get things from places we had never been. You think that would be hard for people who grew up going to San Francisco but that city is packed (literally) full of places to eat. We decided to go get pizza by the slice. There's a place that we found once in the middle of the night and we haven't found it since even though we look. It's a mystery - think Harry Potter and the Room of Requirement. Anyway we thought we found the place but it wasn't it so we ate there anyway. 

You can't go wrong with pizza. But we still had some major time to kill so we went for coffee. We found a Blue Bottle Coffee Co since I'd never had their coffee, and it's kind of hard to find considering we found one down an ally. Then we went sight seeing. We drove as far up the hills as we could and found the coolest view of the residential area... sorry, but here's one sight seeing picture.

Close to six I got ready and headed over to the Hyatt to catch a shuttle to the dinner. When we got there, Sabra had a tasting of different types of hummus for us to try. Everyone was mingling and eating. Wine was served which definitely helped break the ice for people who didn't know anyone there (cough, cough). It was super fun to meet new people and eat really good (free) food. The best part was seeing everyone bust out their cameras as soon as they saw food! I really have found my people *smiles*.

After about an hour we started dinner. It was buffet style and the food was from our fellow food bloggers. I definitely had some favorites (and not-so favorites but who gripes about free food?). There was no shortage of food, they definitely had it ready for backup. It got to try my first seared pork belly. I would have traded in all of the other food for more of it!!! Look how beautiful it is. And it was hard not getting any of the other cameras in the pictures - you know us food bloggers, we know good food when we see it.

One of the other really cool things is that I was able to meet and sit next to Jason Phelps from Ancient Fire Wine Blog. Luckily for me I was able to sample his strawberry wine - delish!

Now I may not know much about baking but I love me some desserts. However there was very few things here that I really enjoyed. I would have preferred a good piece of cheesecake or something. I mean the room was full of food bloggers - someone could have figured something out! One other small gripe was the lighting. You'd think they'd provide the best lighting for food bloggers. Nope. But what we managed. I think most of us agree that eating the food was more important than taking a million pictures of it.

By the end of the night I was so full and exhausted that I didn't bother going out. I'll end this post with my first night of festivities but trust me, so much more is coming. I'll share the people I met, the food I tried, and laughs that came a long with it. Until we meet again... cheers!