The Tasting Pavilion Experience
“Yum!” seemed to be my favorite word of the afternoon. Foodbuzz put together a great group of companies both large and small to showcase their products at this year’s Foodbuzz Festival, and I left the Tasting Pavilion giddy from either chocolate or beer, I am still not sure which.
I didn’t have a chance to stop by every booth, but I did my best to make my rounds. Here are some of the highlights for me:
Frog Hollow Farms
I have already shared my admiration for their pears, but their granola was tasty too. I think it would be fabulous paired with some fresh fruit (pears???) and plain Greek yogurt, and just a sprinkling will go a long way. This granola is super flavorful!
Fuego
The chef of this restaurant prepared such a beautiful taste that I know my husband and I will go there for dinner the next time we visit California together- PhillyBoy, you would have loved this one. Ssshhh don’t tell anyone, I went back for seconds.
Several Foodzie stars. To explain Foodzie, it is like the Etsy of food (as far as I understand it). You can buy their products through Foodzie online.
A melt in your mouth Applewood Smoked Sea Salt Chocolate
Annie is super spunky and passionate about her cookies. These tasted so doughy, you wouldn’t even know they were cooked.
Peanut butter cookie with mini peanut butter cups:
And a toffee milk chocolate chip cookie:
French, for heart of chocolates. Need I say more?
We were offered two items to sample, and both were amazing. There were three types of marshmallows, tahitian vanilla, raspberry, and pumpkin. If only I had a cup of hot chocolate to drop them in…
And a passion fruit truffle. These had an impressively strong sweet passion fruit flavor, and upon tasting one I was instantly brought back to my honeymoon in Bora Bora.
While the Foodzie stations were aplenty, there were many other foods to sample too.
I wasn’t sure which beer to try as I am not educated in beers, so I left it up to the beer master. He selected the Hell or High Watermelon Wheat Beer for me to taste. My mouth was so confused! This was SO refreshing and light, and I could almost taste summer while drinking it.
Not only is some of this owner’s family from my mom’s hometown of Trieste, Italy, but he has really delicious chocolate. The truffle I tried is one of the best I have ever had. The ganache literally melted in my mouth. I enjoyed it so much I asked for a few to go so I could let my husband try it too. For me, this was the absolute hands down tastiest chocolate at the Tasting Pavilion.
He also showcased a lovely mini peppermint patty, which would have shined more without its ganache cousin nearby:
By this time my belly was full, but I still went around and educated myself about a few products, taking small samples with me to try another time if I could. When I left I had an embarrassing amount of bags…
…that I had to put down to take some photobooth pictures with friends!
I don’t want to forget to share the Foodbuzz goodie bag too! There are so many amazing tools and products here that I am really excited to try! I am especially excited about the Mezzetta olives, which PhillyBoy will surely love.
Previous posts about the Foodbuzz Festival can be found here:
Nature’s Pride at the Tasting Pavilion
Eating my way through the Farmer’s Market
San Francisco’s Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market (video)
Also, don’t forget to follow me on Twitter! www.twitter.com/rhodeygirltests
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That watermelon beer looks so good! Is it wrong that it sounds appetizing at 7am??
oh.. how I missed that photo booth… opss… too distracted by all those food!
btw, your mini muffin was one of my favorite on the tasting! great job! 🙂
Watermelon wheat beer?! Very interesting!! I’ve been keeping up with your Foodbuzz posts and it looks like you had a great time! I wish I went, it looks like so much fun!
Wow!! All those chocolates.. especially those smoked sea salt ones. I would love to try them! I don’t like beer, but I’d definitely try that one. Veery interesting.
All these chocolates look sooooo amazing! Yum!
I LOVE how reading everyone’s experience makes me realize how we all saw different things. It makes me want to go back and check out those things I didn’t see 😀
LOVE the recap and summary at the bottom too 🙂
sounds like you had a great time. Wish I could have made it this year..maybe next time. Glad you like Mazetta products, I’ve been cooking with them for years and find they’re great. Since we moved to Sonoma 4 years ago, we’ve become friends with Ron Mazetta (he’s a neighbor) and we have coffee with him almost every morning. The roasted red peppers are amazing. He gave me a couple of bottles to try last month and I used them in my Indian cooking. All his stuff is just great. Love your blog btw.
That chocolate looks fabulous. What an exciting weekend!
Just want to say CONGRATS on being one of the Natures Pride ambassadors!! So awesome. The whole festival looks amazing, I hope I can go next year! All that food looks incredible.
I eat Frog Hollow Fruit every week 😉 and Mezzeta is my go to brand for pepperoncinis and olives. It’s so fun to see what is “new” to people that don’t live here and it reminds me that our country is BIG and our selection is varied. It also scares me when I think about moving!