You probably already know this- I love food trucks. Actually my hubby and I both love street food! Attending the LA Street Food Fest in Pasadena has been on our “must-do” list and guess who won tickets to the event this year? ME! WOOT-WOOT! My family packed our sunscreen, water bottles and headed out for good eats and fun!
Kudos to the organizers for selecting an awesome variety of over 100 vendors. Ticket prices include entrance to the Food Fest and all you can eat food and beverages! (I heard other festivals have charged an admission price on top of paying for each vendor.) Kids under 7 get in for free which worked for us! I highly recommend the VIP tickets. You are allowed early admission (2 hours early!) which means better parking, shorter lines and you won’t risk vendors running out of food. There was an ID check for boozing inside and outside of the gates which sped up the waiting process at the entrance.
There was plenty of water to go around from Hawaiian Springs. One very cool idea I noticed is that people brought their own containers or tops of copy paper boxes. Smart! Attendees filled up their containers with food and then found a spot chow down. But I was totally fine with standing, waiting and eating as we went. The bites are small you will be compelled to get back in line for more samples. I also wanted to give a shout out to Honest Tea for offering kid pouches. Made my kid happy. 😉
Here were my families favorites:
- The Grilled Cheese Truck’s Italian Pesto Special. YES PLEASE! I love pesto spread on a grilled cheese sandwich!
- Belly BombZ K-BBQ Korean inspired BBQ Wings. HECK YEAH. So good. I enjoyed Bibigo’s BiBimBop but I really wish we could move on from The Ghangham Style advertisements.
- Fred62 served up heavenly deep-fried goodness Slow Smoked pork belly w/rojos con crema Macaroni Cheese. Ok, fancy name for a mac & Cheese ball but I could’ve eaten 20 of them.
- Dang Brothers Pizza. Dang! Their fire truck was super awesome and their pizza was delish.
- Gorge’s Greek The Gyro & Falafel sliders were the bomb. My entire family loved it here – so this one gets a That’s IT from us.
- Fluff Ice was a favorite dessert for us. Definitely fluffy and we were one of the last to taste their Kiwi flavor. SO GOOD and I want more!
I think I tried almost all of the vendors over in the dessert section but I wish I could say that I tried all of the rest… I was honeslty too stuffed and my belly was happy. I didn’t want to overdo it.
I loved that Instagram photos tagged with #LAFoodFest were printed out by InstaPartyBox. Definitely a cool momento from the day. We rested smack dab the middle of the Rose Bowl football field while enjoying the live entertainment. This gave children a chance to run around and dance. The crowd was definitely 20-30 somethings but with a mix of older peeps and families. What I’d like to see for next year is a booth dedicated to kids. Maybe bring in Little Junebugs from Pasadena to do some fun crafts or maybe have one of the cupcake places present a cupcake decorating session. But I do have to say that the Ice Scream social was a big hit with my little girl as well as the face painting. She bonded with the face painter!
I recommend that you experience the LA Food Fest. It does get hot! It was 95 degrees but there was always a shaded spot and the spray misters were running on full blast. It became a lot cooler as the sun set behind the Rose Bowl. It was incredibly colorful and cool. We left happy and we are already scouting out and plan to visit some of the new vendors my family’s bellies were introduced to today.
* I won tickets to the LA Food Fest. The review is in our own words and is our opinion. Your results and opinions may differ.
