EAT! Vancouver is an annual food and cooking festival. It has been going on for several years and always attracts a large crowd. There are tons of vendors promoting their products. Also, seminars and shows to attend! They also have a good amount of celebrity chefs doing demonstrations, so if you are a Food Network addict, this might be the place for you. In a way, its similar to a trade-show where there are booths selling/promoting products. If you’ve previously been to EAT! Vancouver, it’s very similar.
It costs $16 for an adult to enter and it goes on from June 1st – 3rd. Saturday is the most busiest day and gets a lot of visitors around noon. There will be crowds and there can be lines/waits for certain booths or shows. If you have a bit of patience, you should be alright.
A lot of vendors provide samples of their new products. These companies can be large corporations or even small independent businesses. McDonald’s was there near the entrance giving out samples of their 3 fruit smoothie drinks. They even give you $1 off coupons too.
One of the cutest booths I saw was Binh’s Lollicakes. They sell cake-pops in very unique shapes. Not all booths have samples, but some booths you are tempted to purchase their products. I totally got a cake-pop from this place! It was delicious too!
From all the samples at all the various booths, you can get full. If not, just go do a few rounds of samples at your favorite places.
I think at certain booths, I got greedy too. In my defense, there were others that grabbed way more than me. Remember, it’s not an all-you-can-eat buffet here, so do remember your manners and not fight others for samples. You would be surprised at how pushy some people can get over samples.
Not all items at EAT! Vancouver are free, so at some booths, you require some tickets to buy food or cooked dishes. For $10, you get 20 tickets or $5 for 10 tickets. Essentially, it’s $0.50 per ticket.
At the DWAY Foods Inc, they do have a few dishes that require tickets. I highly recommend this booth!
For 2 tickets, you get 3 pieces of their tuna sashimi with 2 of their sauces that they sell at their table – Yuzu pepper sauce and soy sauce. It was very delicious and worth the 2 tickets.
At Blenz Coffee booth, they were giving out complementary matcha lattes and hot chocolate. You can get a free coupon book that’s valid for a few days.
The matcha latte wasn’t good, but the hot chocolate was very delicious.
You can also get a latte for 1 ticket. Its a good size and definitely worth it if you are in need of some caffeine.
Boylan’s has been at EAT! Vancouver for several years now. They are always promoting their signature sodas.
They offer samples on all their sodas and you have an option of purchasing a bottle for 4 tickets/$2. If you don’t have tickets, they take cash too. I chose the ginger ale since it’s not too sweet and it’s a good item to calm the stomach after lots and lots of samples.
Mochikas sells Peruvian food and if you ever get a chance to go to their restaurant, I would highly recommend it.
I got the pork belly slider for 8 tickets and something just didn’t look right or taste right. It was quite oily on the inside of the slider…and outside on the bun. They were probably rushing and missed a few steps because I’ve had this before and it’s nothing like this.
Salmon n’ Bannock bistro was here too.
The pickled salmon for 2 ticket was so delicious. It was sooo good…I got it 4 times within 2 day at EAT! Vancouver. SO GOOD! It was my favorite item of the entire event.
I saw Goldilocks and I had to try this also! They have Phillipino dishes and desserts. I’ve heard lots of positive feedback from this place so I had to check it out.
I had the Chicken Adobo and it comes with some tofu and 2 pieces of chicken over rice. It’s a filling item to get, but it tasted quite average.
Then I got the Turon, a deep-fried banana fritter coated with caramel.
The banana was delicious on the inside of the phyllo pastry coated in caramel. I wasn’t a huge fan of it since I found it was way too sweet and had way too much caramel coating.
Organic Lives serves up heathy food!
For six tickets, I got the pizza. It was quite large and not as small as you would think. I really enjoyed it.
The alcohol area is for 19+ and you must show ID and pay a deposit of 2 tickets for a glass. You get your deposit back once you return your glass as you leave the area. The alcohol tastings can range from 1 ticket to 4 tickets.
The cheapest beer tasting that we found was at the Granville Island booth. You pay one ticket to get a sample. They have a few of them on tap that you can choose from.
I chose the Hefewaizen since its one of their lighter beers. It tasted ok, but it did have a bitter after taste. You can definitely taste the hops.
I stopped by at Forbidden Fruit Winery to try some of their wine.
I tried the Caught Apricot Mistelle dessert wine. I have never had dessert wine, but it is way sweeter than normal wines.
To get the most out of your ticket to EAT! Vancouver, go to some of the seminars and shows. They are all included in the ticket, so do try to spend some time and learn something new!
They also have barista competitions throughout EAT! Vancouver too. Latte art is serious business!
At the Food Network Canada Celebrity Stage, they usually hold some cooking demos and competitions between some celebrity chefs. The seats are usually full by the time each show starts, but you can always stand up near the sides.
On Friday June 1st, Erin Cebula of ET Canada was hosting the EAT! Vancouver Celebrity Chef Throwdown between David Rocco, Rob Feenie and Bob Blumer. If you watch Food Network Canada, you will recognize these faces.
All the chefs were interviewed prior to the competition, so it might appear on ET Canada!
The 3 chefs were given 20 minutes to create a lunch dish with the secret ingredient – Kale. I didn’t stick around to figure out what they made or who won, but it was pretty awesome seeing all 3 of them in real life.
On Saturday, I caught a glimpse of Dale MacKay! He was the winner of Top Chef Canada (Season 1) and the brains behind Ensemble and Ensemble Tap.
In the afternoon on Saturday, Rob Feenie was back and was showing the audience how to make Vietnamese inspired sandwiches with pulled pork. He gave a quick demo on how to prepare the roast.
He also spent a large amount of time talking about his Iron Chef experience against Morimoto on Battle Crab. He went into detail about the process of taping the episode and the certain things they don’t show on camera.
At the end of the demo, everyone get a taste of the pulled pork sliders with a Vietnamese twist. People in the audience was basically rushing the table to get a piece of this creation. It wasn’t anything too amazing, but it tasted alright.
After devouring the sandwich, I had to get picture with Rob Feenie!
