L.A. FOOD FEST – NOT FOR FOODIES

LA FOOD FEST 2017

Food fest!!!! Sounds like a perfect place for a foodie to try out all the best food in one place all at once, no?

This year the LA food fest was held at the LA Memorial Coliseum. Tickets are categorized into VIP or regular. VIP tickets ($95 + taxes + $5 service charge) allow you a little earlier entrance, approximately 2.5 hours before the regular tickets holder. Regular tickets are $65 + taxes + service fee with an entrance time at 3:30pm. This price includes all the food and drinks (including alcoholic drinks). Sounds like a pretty sweet deal!

The day of the food fest, I arrived at the coliseum at 2:30pm and the line for entrance has already surrounded HALF of the coliseum!!!

Waited…waited…and waited….

And….

waited……

4:30pm…the line still hasn’t moved!!!! (Ps. the food fest closes at 7pm.) Now everyone is thinking, “I paid $75 for this food fest, how am I gonna get my money worth?!”

And, I was just getting HANGRYYY because I haven’t ate anything since the night before…

Finally, got through the gate around 5pm……after passing through the gates, people were like zombies running loose!

But before going after the food, gotta grab what I called a “beggar’s tray” to hold your food…

After the long wait in line outside the gate, all I saw when I got inside was more waiting lines for food….This was kind of expected, but what I didn’t expect was the quantity of food I get for lining up! Did I pay $75 for this bite size portion of food?!

Some booths have quite interesting posters…..

But it was just a deep fried dough in spicy crabmeat sauce….and, despite of my hunger, I didn’t finish it…just wasn’t worth my calories…

I have to say this ceviche was the only food that was worth lining up for. It had an appetizing presentation with a generous portion of food. And it also tasted as good as it looked.

Beer was very mediocre…

These wings were just very typical spicy wings. But, they tasted amazing compared to all the other food offered. And they were generous enough to give 2 wings if you asked…

I only got this pistachio milk tea because there wasn’t a lineup…after a sip of it, I could understand why….

Popsicle also come in bite size…

There were many other food and drinks. But many weren’t worth taking pics at all. Such as the time that I waited 20 minutes in line for pasta. All I got was one piece of semi-warm gnocchi cut in halves…. or the time when I got a cold teriyaki chicken with rice which the vendor ran out of forks or spoons. Am I suppose to use my hand then?!

At the end, I found this a very tiring experience. I left with an unsatisfied stomach. Everyone was trying to get their money worth of food or drinks to take home at the end.