The Liverpool Food Festival
A few short notes about the festival from me, I went for both days and really quite enjoyed it. Ok there was nothing outstanding there, but still some very nice food and it clearly entertained thousands of people, I think it was a job well done.
Ribs from Alma De Cubs, lovely stuff that fell of the bone and was full of flavour.
I ate quite a bit including some lovely ribs from Alma De Cuba and some Churos from the Lunya stall that looked fantastic. A pork pie from Orchard Pigs was really excellent and the beer tent run by the Ship and Mitre was fantastic, a really great range of beers on offer.
An Orchard Pigs, pork, apple and cider pie. It was top-notch.
This was good work from the usual suspects and I liked it, however I was hoping for a few hidden treasures, stumbling across a restaurant/cafe that I didn’t know about, and discovering some lovely food. This didn’t happen, again the festival lacks a few noticeable exceptions, and thus the corresponding awards (Given out this weekend and only to festival attendees) lack some credibility. I would like to see some steps taken to make this more inclusive to benefit the food industry in Liverpool.
I can’t remember what this beer is, but it was fantastic, well done Ship and Mitre.
I had two main thoughts about the festival – that it’s mainly a big advert for restaurants and that too many of the products on sale were processed.
I’d have liked to have seen more of the restaurants providing menus for the food on sale (some of which was more pricey than it needed to be – £5 for a not very generous portion of pulled pork from Jamie Oliver)
I’d also like to have seen more “raw” produce like chickens and pork belly rather than just pies and sausages (though orchard pig pie with jelly was sublime) there was better meat on sale at lark lane farmers market the previous week
Lesley
Without doubt it’s one big marketing and PR event, the inclusion of large corporate companies like stena line, Soreen and Regge Regge Sauce make this clear. However without this could the festival survive, it needs money from somewhere.
There was some good meat, Shaws who are always at the farmers markets were there, but I agree perhaps choice of produce was not great. I hear there are quite a few restrictions on who can trade in the produce market.