The most awaited summer food fair is already on its third year! Best Food Forward is back to give culinary masters and entrepreneurs the chance to showcase their delicious masterpieces and of course, invite foodies *ahem* to experience a unique palatable adventure. Aside from the wide variety of specialty food stalls eager to give guests a taste of their unique dishes, there will also be cooking demos, guest chefs, and even photo booths and face painting for the kids! Looks like you just got a great idea of where you can spend your family day.

Best Food Forward 2013

I was one of the lucky few who got a chance to attend Best Food Forward’s preview event yesterday at Malayan Hotel. Only a few stalls were there, but it was enough to give me an idea of how it’s going to be like on the actual event on April 20. And I feel excited!

There were a lot of goodies to try so I had to limit myself to taste just a little of everything. My buddy and I thought of a game plan – salads first, then the meaty stuff, and finally the desserts. A realization that day: We suck at following game plans.

Here are the tasty delights we have tried on the preview:

Kewpie

Kewpie is the leading brand of mayonnaise, spreads, and dressings in Japan. With the help of Mitsubishi, we can now see catch this cute cherub here in the Philippines. We tried their Roasted Sesame (“GOMA”) dressing on our salad and my buddy ended up having more than one serving!

Delicakes by Joly

Tea-lovers will love this one. Delicakes serves classic cakes and tea-infused pastries. If I heard it right, Joly (yep, we also got to meet her) got the idea of fusing tea with her baked goodies when she saw her mom boil eggs with tea leaves. The Macaroons were delicious! I especially loved the ube flavored ones. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to try their specialty cakes because there wasn’t a ref in the venue, but I’d sure be looking forward to try that White Choco Matcha Cake!

Speculoos

I can’t blame you if you’re somehow reminded of Harry Potter with the brand’s name – it was actually one of the inspirations behind Little Pepita’s Sweet Delights. I’ve always wondered how butter beer tastes like and now I know! It was sweet with a hint of caramel topped with whipped cream. We also got to try their Speculoos Polvoron and the interesting Speculoos chocolates dipped in non-fat milk. Oh and by the way, butter beer has no alcohol content.

Mrs. Graham’s

But, if you’re really want your taste buds to savor some alcohol flavors, take a look at Mrs. Graham’s Macarons. Yep, you got that right – Macarons. They take pride in their unique and unconventional macaron flavors. What flavour do you want? Tequila Rose? Baileys’? Malibu Rhum? Or you can also indulge in the tamer Cookie Dough, Inside-Out Smores, and Salted Caramel Flavors. Definitely a must-try!

Casa Angeline’s

Macarons definitely are in in this year’s Best Food Forward! Casa Angline’s also specializes in their own unique macaron flavors like Pandan and Rose. As you may have guessed, I tried the Rose flavour first and it was pleasant to the taste and even to the smell! But what caught my attention more are their Flan Pots, which are flans on top of flavoured jams/jellies. You can eat this dessert by scooping it straight out of the bottle!

Eat my GF

Now hold on and don’t get inappropriately excited. For the record, the full name is Eat My Garlic Fries. We headed directly to their stall when we heard they serve the Big-O – a huge burger made up of eggs, cheese, and wait for it…50% beef patty and 50% bacon! Boy, remind me to go to the gym every time I gobble up these babies. My buddy particularly loved their Virgin Chips (I’m starting to love the names!), which are freshly sliced potatoes with garlic, parmesan, and parsley dipped in their very own homemade Chilli.

Gold Leaf

It’s a good thing we had a refreshing beverage during the event, and a healthy one too! Gold Leaf is a Philippine brand exclusively making teas. You can get them as concentrates in bottles to be mixed with water to your taste. We were able to try the Green Tea and the Black Tea and personally I liked Black Tea the better. I can imagine this going well with some pearls or jellies.

Kalookies

This was one of my favorites. Not only was the name catchy and cute, the cookies were great as well! We got to try the Chocolate & White Chocolate Chip Nutella (who can say no to Nutella?), Reese’s Chocolate Chip and Nutella (what more with Reese’s?!), and Chocolate Chip and Nutella. I loved them all. Kal, the owner, bakes the cookies himself, hence the name. “Nakakalookies!”.

Our Kitchen

If you don’t have much time to cook your meals but you want to enjoy the goodness of home-cooked food, then you might like Our Kitchen’s Ready to Heat Products. You just have to keep these time-savers frozen and heat ‘em up when you’re hungry. Mind you, these aren’t your usual frozen dishes, you can choose from Lasagna con Champignon, Seafood Kare-Kare, Korean Beef Stew, and Chili Beef Caldereta. This could work well with my yuppie lifestyle!

Best Food Forward 2013 Dates, Location, Details

These are just some of the good food that you can try when you go to Best Food Forward. It will happen on April 20-21, 2013 at the NBC Tent in Bonifacio Global City. Check out their website for more details: http://bestfoodforward.com.ph/