Feast Festival, Shoreditch High Street

Posted by: Excited About Lunch on: July 7, 2013

• In: Editor's Review | Food Festivals | Shoreditch High Street
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FEAST FESTIVAL
Brick Lane Yard
Buxton Street Gate (Corner of Buxton Street and Brick Lane)
E1 5ER

PRICING: £10 ticket + £5/£6 per plate
RATING: 10+
WEB: www.wefeast.co.uk

Finding the Feast festival was a feat in itself; I was surprised to find so many hidden markets off Brick Lane trying their best to lure me away from my goal, and I did wonder whether it was going to be worth the entrance fee. I must say, it was for me but for my vegetarian friend, not so much.

I expected more stalls but there were plenty of innovators about. The portions were very small for the price, but we came for gourmet so I guess that was to be expected.

It immediately became apparent that the guys running the coconut water stall at the entrance, drew in the most punters. They hit the hottest day of the year with a home run.

The first food stall was The Flat Iron sporting a 48 hour slow cooked wagyu beef:

Du u wagyu?

Wagyu is a breed of cattle (similar to Kobe) that is famous for its marbling and high percentage of omega 3 and 6 fatty acids. It was succulent and scrumptious with the horseradish. But my question remains, if it has been cooked for 48 hours, shouldn’t it have been more tender? I chewed, I loved, I finished. OK so what’s next?

And on I roamed. Now let it be said in a fight between meat and fish, for me fish is always the clear winner. So when I clocked The Rum Kitchen, I knew the swordfish roll with aioli would be mine eventually. The only problem was that I got distracted by the crab roll at Bonnie Gull; but it was a fresh and light distraction, perfect for a hot summer lunch with the soft buttered roll, spring onions and little gem.

crab n oysters @ Bonnie Gull

The fabulous thing about our “food revolution” is that chefs search every corner of the globe for street food that Londoners have never heard of, or they are simply replicating a taste that they grew up with abroad. Feast is one opportunity to show off these discoveries. For example, Gua Boa at Boa which is a stuffed pillowy bun, Korean tacos at Kimchinary, Hainese poached ginger chicken at Miss Manchu, the now popular arepa at Ricarepa which is stuffed cornbread to name but a few.

Arrrreppppaaaa!

I especially loved the bizarrely eye-catching Indonesian stall, serving udang pepe which is chilli prawn in banana leaves.

Indonesia’s finest.. hairy mask not included.

I did go back for the swordfish roll at Rum Kitchen after all and it was quite satisfying. The roll was steamed inside and fried outside, which made it a bit chewy and reminded me of a ‘pulki’; this is deep fried gram flour batter which puffs into a ball and Pakistanis soak it in yogurt as a side dish to biryani or pilau. It was a compliment to the swordfish and aioli, as a roll would not have had the same punch. I did get a bit of a flashback to a beach in Trinidad where I tried a shark sandwich for the first time. Rather wonderful!

A taste of the Caribbean..

The most eye-catching stall was from the Meringue Girls, see for yourself:

My eyes were harangued by the Meringue Girls stall..

Now, I have a question for you. When is a super food not a super food?
Say for example, our trusty friend the beetroot is doused in chocolate and served up as a brownie by a place called Detox Kitchen, does eating it make me super healthy?
I’m going to take that as a yes. And mostly because it was not too chocolatey or too cakey and was sweetened by the beetroot, and partly because well, who cares.

All in all, Feast was heavenly. It was a little difficult to see everything that was available as most of the stalls were packed full of people and there wasn’t a lot of room to move around them. It would also have been nice to have more seating, as people just got territorial and didn’t bother moving once they found a seat at the picnic style tables. But the food was gorgeous. I loved everything I tried.

My vegetarian friend had a little trouble finding anything interesting however, but we were in Brick Lane, so I found her a South Indian dosa place merely a few yards away and she was as happy as a veggie clam.

Vive La Revolucion!