Event: Taste of Eastside Recap, Barnsdall Park

Another beautiful sunny day, another Los Angeles food festival. This time I got to check out a very pleasant, very well organized, Taste of the Eastside fest, featuring popular eateries from Silver Lake, Glendale, Los Feliz, Echo Park, Eagle Rock and Highland Park.

Often events like this are massive and confusing to navigate, but the smallish size of of the park lent the perfect backdrop for this delicious and lazy Sunday. I loved that unlike other big festivals, I didn’t have to wait in a super long line for meager offerings. The bites here were generous and filling. Although it was packed, it never felt too crowed. It was easy to sip and sample, chill on the grass and hear some great music. And that’s just what we did.

My favorites of the day included freshly grilled oysters from Little Dom’s, sea salted caramel, white chocolate gelato with lavender from Pazzo Gelato, a fresh arugula salad from Mohawk Bend and a Vietnamese chicken curry tostada from Xoia.

The slightly spicy sausage from Maestro’s definately piqued my interest as well, along with a shrimp taco with jalepeño from Diablo Taco.

To refresh, the always tasty Intelligentsia offered a Columbian iced coffee blend, Silver Lake Juice Bar gave away aromatic juice samples, while blueberry iced tea from one of my newest favorites, the Salvadorian Bakery, Cuscatleca made me swoon.

Throughout the day, the VIP tents offered various cooking demos from local chefs. I had the pleasure of assisting my friend, Yoko Isassi of Foodstory in making sushi cupcakes! Check back tomorrow for the recap on our cooking demonstration and for the recipe!

It was a family and dog friendly event and I couldn’t help but make some new friends while I was there.

Whippet. Whippet, good.

After the booths ran out of food, we meandered back over to the beer and wine tent and sipped some rosé from Silver Lake Wine and listened to the danceable beats of KCRW DJ Holly Adams. We thought about grabbing some more ice cream, but the line at Pazzo Gelato however was still ridiculously long. Considering the warm temps, it was the only booth people didn’t mind waiting for.

Special props to Sustain LA for doing a great job with providing and promoting responsible recycling!

From Sqirl to Heriloom LA to Cliff’s Edge, there were truly too many delicious vendors to include in this post. Just do yourself a favor and make sure to check them out at some point. Plus, there’s always next year!

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