Eat Real Festival - Jack London Square, Oakland, California

Chairman Bao. Abodo Hobo. The Creme Brulee Cart. Curry Up Now. Seoul on Wheels.

These are places serve tasty food? They sound more like bedtime stories that Alton Brown and Julia Child were read by their foodie-minded guardians.

My senses were overwhelmed this past Friday and Saturday as I joined thousands of other foodies at the Eat Real Festival in Jack London Square in Oakland. This food fest was created to celebrate real, wholesome food. It's as simple as that; there was a special emphasis in street food, local and sustainable foods, and urban homesteading.

I went on Friday with my parents and it was great but we found out that another section would be opening on Saturday. So, I returned again, this time with my friends Kim and Matt.

The festival had some guidelines. Each vendor had to feature ingredients that were locally grown or organic and each item had to stay below 5 bucks. This means I could take my time and figure out what plates I wanted to indulge my taste buds in, while eating wholesome, eco-friendly food. That's a win, win for me, the foodie, and the world.

 I guess the word had gotten out about the festival. By noon Saturday, it was packed like a sardine can. One of the huge hits was by Gerad's Paella.

We waited in a 45 minute line to get the Spainish, saffron-infused rice, too bad we didn't have a fast pass.

I think that swimming pool of a pan was enough of a crowd pleaser, but then add in the wafts of simmering seafood, and chicken and you got a foodie magnet.

 Can I just say how obsessed I am with food trucks? I really love 'em. Not only do they have great food but I really like the idea behind them. Take a whole restaurant complete with chefs, wait staff, management, industrial sized kitchen, tables, chairs, plates and who knows what else? And scale that down to a movable truck with a 16 foot kitchen which can drive straight to the customers. Because there is no physical building with rent, wait staff, tables and chairs,  food can be more reasonably priced without cutting food costs. 

Chefs still had the culinary creativity but sometimes lacked the monetary means of having a full on restaurant, instead they put all their ideas and means into a movable, personable food truck. They used the best tools to advertise too. Food trucks take advantage of  Facebook, Yelp, and Twitter to build their clientèle.

Let's take Curtis Kimball, for example. The former carpenter started to make creme brulee and sell them out of the back of his bike basket in San Francisco. By word of mouth, the secret of fresh, tasty and reasonable creme brulee got out. He posted where he was on Twitter and the rest is history. Over 13,000 people are following him and are obsessed with his burnt sugar desserts. Now that is a cool way to use technology. His creme brulee was creamy, the perfect consistency with a nice crunchy layer of caramel on top.

The food truck featuring my theme of the day

All things food trendy were present of course. This cart dappled in the up and rising trend of molecular gastronomy- the science dealing with the chemical properties and physical traits of the ingredients that occur during cooking. They were making ice cream via liquid nitrogen. It freezes the cream, sugar and milk into particles that are much smaller than a conventional machine. This yields a creamier texture and they fat to liquid ratio can be reduced. Oh good.

Now, what else did I have to eat? Those of you who know me, know that I am horrible at decisions. I have over 100 vendors to choose from. Great. Well, here's some of the things that we tried.

Higos Figs from Whole Foods. Grilled farm fresh figs served with a balsamic reduction, goat cheese, and Marcona almonds. This was the perfect dessert for a hot summer night. The cheese and balsamic played off the sweet, seedy figs and the whole dessert was brought together with the crunch of the roasted almonds.

Nun Chuk Chicken Taco from King Fu Tacos. Marinated grilled Chicken, cilantro, onions, hoisin sauce and spicy carrot salsa. The flavors complimented each other perfectly. I wanted more and more and more.

Vegan vegetable samosa from Curry Up Now. To be honest, I prefer their Chicken Tikka Burrito. These were a little too greasy. However, the mint chutney was refreshing, cooling and bursting at the seams with flavor.

Korean chicken Taco from Seoul on Wheels. This was ok but I still prefer the Kung Fu tacos. Maybe more meat and less lettuce next time.

Look at all the flavors of creme brulee. mmmmm. These weren't from the creme brulee cart, mentioned earlier, but still great none-the-less.

This was the grand marnier version (Orange liquor). It was creamy, crunchy and had a power orange punch. I love the fact that they serve them in jars. I wonder instead of a ban marie they cook them stacked like jam jars. Genius, perhaps? I asked my mom to finish the last bite and she said "I can't I'll start to wheeze." I guess I got the allergic to alcohol trait from her.

I also had many samples of gelatos and ice creams, a perfect, not-too-sweet pecan pie, power, zesty pesto, chicken adobo which was a no-go, and more delicious food that if I mentioned my stomach would kill me. 

I am content with the food today, what a whirlwind of flavors. This is definitely a new tradition. Time to take a food coma.