Saturday, August 23, 2014

Auckland Street Eats 2014

Social media was well taken advantage of to promote this already hugely popular event. Reminders about the event started showing up on my facebook feed a month before the event.
Unfortunately, "Fabric-a-brac", another event that I was interested in was on the same day. I thought that we would be able to make it to both places, first to fabric-a-brac and then, to the street eats, but hunger got the better of me and the queues at Street Eats took up all the time, that I had to miss Fabric-a-brac.

There is no wonder why this event is not already a monumental success. The food did not fail to please, except for a few let downs. Some of the food is not really "street" food, as in, you need to use both your hands and may be look a mess as well. All of the vendors serve their food in eco friendly bowls and food cones and there are friendly people willing to come help clean away the empty bowls, though there was no lack of dustbins at the venue.

We tried the "Lamb Pita" from Ima Cuisine which was a huge let down. It was our first buy and it definitely was not worth the wait in the huge queue. The team struggled with delivering orders.  Priced at 10$, the lamb was a bit undercooked for our liking. They did have a 7$ vegetarian falafel option as well, though we did not try that one. I have heard a lot about their Shakshuka but that was not on offer at Street Eats.

Our next stop was the Belotta stall, where we had Piquollo Peppers, which was absolutely delicious and had our spirits up again. Priced at 8$, we got two pieces of peppers stuffed with delicate, delicious seafood filling topped with a smooth tomato based sauce.

From the time we had entered the venue, I knew I had to visit the Food Truck Garage. So, we next ran to join that queue downing our beers, as we were not allowed to take the beer out of Shed 10. The Beefroot Slider and the Redergize Salad were amazingly delicious and worth the 5$ each. Well worth the wait in the queue with the hot NZ sun toasting our backs. I am definitely going to buy quinoa when I am at the supermarket next to try my own version of the Redergize salad.


Our final stop was Orleans for their Key Lime Pie(lets)(5$ for two) and Fried Chicken with Waffles in a Food Cone(8$). This was just the end we needed to our lunch. Slightly sweet waffles with crispy chicken nuggets served in a food cone. That pleased the Indian in me - symbolic of the food cones made of newspaper in which we could buy roasted peanuts or the dry Indian Bhel. This queue was the largest but we ate a slice of Toto's pizza as we waited.

It was really crowded and so we booted out giving Urban Turban, Merchants of Venice, iVillage, Mexico, The Grill by Sean Connelly, Thai Street, Y Not, amongst others, a miss.

There was a DJ playing some pretty good music, face painting and an inflated kid's play area. This one happens annually and should not be missed. It gives you a chance to sample the food from some of the restaurants on the waterfront at a nominal price.