A.W.E.some Food and Drinks: SUMMER FANCY FOOD SHOW

June 30 – July 2, 2013 (New York City)

Held at the Javits Center in NYC, the Fancy Food Show is a food lover’s paradise. You can sample food offerings from over 2,500 exhibitors, representing countries from all around the world. What is particularly awesome is that most of the food sampled is conveniently available through purchase online or from a local nearby grocery store (such as a Whole Foods or a Shop Rite).

It can be an overwhelming experience for first timers, but it’s a very civilized experience compared to other conferences such as Book Expo or NY Comic Con where attendees swarm like the zombies from Brad Pitt’s World War Z film for the freebies and giveaways.

Most Important Advice

Pace yourself. Fight off the urge to sample EVERYTHING. Especially avoid trying every cheese as that will fill you up pretty quickly and deny you the opportunity of sampling a variety of tastings.

Do also take some time to appreciate some of the booths pretty unique and eye-catching designs as well as their product packaging.

Such as the chocolate-made shoes and handbags of Sweet Shop USA:

The beautiful vine-shaped balsamic vinegar bottle holder from Fattorie Giacobazzi:

The GoGo Squeez Apple Sauce tree:

The Ginger People Gin-Gins:

The jeweled offerings from Koppers:

And Haribo:

And the new launch of Jelly Belly’s gift line featuring Mickey and friends:

Do also try to predict your future by getting a fortune cookie from Lady Fortunes:

Or try some fancy New Moon and/or Eclipse chocolate from Dagoba (the company insists that the chocolates were named way before the Twilight series):

Standouts

Asian Food

Best soy sauce

Modenaceti Soy Glaze. Sooo good on vegetable dumplings that I had to get a sample each day of the show.

Best stir-fry sauce (and best demo!)

Blue Dragon’s Szechuan Pepper Stir-Fry Sauce. The Asian chef (who had an Australian accent, but was currently living in England) prepared the stir-fry sauce with chicken. As you can see it was served sizzling from the frying pan. Quick and easy to prep as advertised! And yummy!

Best sandwich

GoFusion. Tried both the Braised Teriyaki and Peking Chicken samples. Even with the bite-sized samples I could taste the explosion of flavors.

Best Indian

Maya Kaimal’s Spinach Saag Masala. Will satisfy that craving for something spicy and flavorful!!

Best peppers

Java Peppers from Indonesia. As exotic tasting as it sounds.

Best seaweed

JK Food’s Roasted and Seasoned Laver Snack (red package). Perfectly made and served by a sweet-looking, matronly Asian woman rolling pieces of seaweed with rice to make small rice balls. The seaweed tasted of shrimp and sesame and had an incredible crunch to it. A must-buy!!

Best pastry

Delimanjoo cream cakes. Fresh-baked pastry; comes with various fillings such as custard (which is the most common) or raisins. It is like tasting a bit of heaven. Plus it is fish-shaped—how cute is that?!? Genius!

Cheeses

Best cheese (and best Mac & Cheese)

Beecher’s Handmade Flagship Cheese. Have been to the Flatiron location in NYC (where they are not stingy about allowing you to taste all of their different cheeses!) to just purchase some cheese, but now must try out the restaurant portion of the store as well.

Best flavored cheese

Snowdonia Cheese Company’s ginger spice cheese. Really soft cheese that seems to melt in your mouth, but the ginger spice flavoring is something that I can honestly say that I’ve never tasted before.

Desserts

Best ice cream

A tie. Jeni’s Goat Cheese with Red Cherries and Gelato Fiasco’s Caramel Sea Salt. Jeni’s tasted smooth and seemingly healthy and refreshing; whereas Gelato Fiasco’s was absolutely decadent. Also, the Gelato Fiasco’s jar is made of plastic, not glass. Keeper!!

Best ice cream topping

Somebody’s Mother’s Chocolate Sauce (White Chocolate sauce). Delish! Tried a sample all three days over vanilla ice cream.

Best cake

Kentucky Woods Bourbon Barrel Cake. Bourbon in a brown sugar and chocolate cake with chocolate and caramel bourbon cream drizzled over bourbon-glazed walnuts. Smooth!

Miscellaneous

Best pasta sauce

Chef Silvio’s Sunday Sauce. Tastes like how Italian pasta sauce should—traditional and Old World.

Best polenta

De la Estancia’s Organic Polenta. It tasted very sweet and it melted easily in your mouth. One of the best polenta that I have ever eaten and I have eaten quite a lot of polenta.

Best preservative

Tiptree’s Lemon Curd. Delicious. Tasted just like candy!

Drinks

Best tea (overall)

Twinings. First off, great booth! They had several tea stations with a generous variety of tea tastings. Most fun was the holiday tea offering. I particularly liked Winter Spice. Nothing beats the summer heat as celebrating Christmas in July.

Loved the ambiance with the grate - reminds me of jolly old London:

Best iced tea

The Republic of Tea’s Decaf Coconut Cocoa. So good it tasted like ice cream!

Best coffee

Dazbog’s roasted coffee is unbelievably good. You can taste the roasted grounds. It tastes the way real coffee should. Plus they have a great biographical story that you can read here: