The Asian American Expo celebrated its 35th Anniversary at the Pomona Fairplex on January 16 and 17. The Expo is held at the beginning of each year to celebrate the coming of the Lunar New Year Festival.
The Expo featured over 1,000 vendor booths, 6 exhibition halls, over 100 food vendors and performances taking place all day. This year they added three new components to the Expo:
• Anime IMPULSE – anime, video games, cosplay and stage performances
• The SILK Show – street wear, sample and closeout sale featuring top brands
• Asian Beer Fest – featuring Tsingtao Beer and other Asian beverages
Since this was my first time attending the Asian American Expo, I was a bit unsure of what to expect to find there. I did not expect to see 3 huge food court areas with so many different food choices. There were so many that it was hard to decide what to eat or try.
You could get a whole grilled lobster, fresh off the grill, at Lobsterdamus for $14, also lobster nachos and lobster balls.
I was a little thirsty and stood in line for some boba at Boba Bear, but they ran out of boba for their drinks. Ended up getting the Honeydew one without the boba, which was sad. Since it didn’t include the boba they should have reduced the prices of the drinks too.
A few places had bbq and grilled squid with some kind of chili paste.
China Tasty was serving hand pulled noodles. You can see the guy making the noodles fresh in the back of the booth.
Duck Queen had all different duck parts ready for you to take home, like necks, gizzards and tongues.
I’m not sure what is in the Chinese hamburger at Lucky Elephant, but it doesn’t look like hambuger.
Was still a bit thirsty still so I bought the chili mango lemonade from Main Squeeze. Tasted so good. Should have bought this a bit later when the sun went down. They put a color flashing led light cube in the drinks.
Bought a mochi waffle from Waffle Land. Which was perfect for snacking on since they break off into little balls.
I usually get these Japanese donuts, called Okinawa dango, at Obon Festivals during the Summer. The ones at paC-Pak had sausage in them.
Thought about getting an okonomiyaki from this place, but wasn’t too hungry at the time…
…So I got chicken and mushroom skewers from Kushitsuru instead. These were quite yummy and hit the spot.
Tried something called a Pop Cake. Did not expect it to have an egg inside the middle of it. Kind of like a poached egg, but with the clear runny part of it there.
One of the best things I ate at the Expo was a coconut sorbet topped with shredded coconut and served in a coconut shell from AB Sorbets & Gelati Celesti. It is vegan, fat-free and made with all natural ingredients. They also had lemon, orange, peach, mango and strawberry sorbet, plus a green tea matcha gelato shot.
The weirdest food thing I saw at the Expo had to be the D-Cake at Yummy Hero. I’m not even going to post the close up pic I took of it. Let’s just say that it is not for children.
