World Food Festival

On October 7 - 9, Des Moines' East Village hosted the 7th Annual World Food Festival. We've been attending the festival for several years now and got there early on Sunday to scout out all of the vendors and figure out our 'plan.' Which was, of course, to try as many of the $1 samples as possible.

There was one food item that Grant just had to try. The Filipino Store offered Chocolate Soup, which isn't chocolate at all, but pork meat cooked in pork blood.

He had a nice chat with the owner of the store and watched as she finished cooking the soup.

It was served with a hefty serving of rice on top.

Here's a close-up of the pork blood soup. Grant said it had lots of flavor and tasted sort of like liver. I wasn't brave enough to try it. I did have the Shumai though, their $1 taste - ground steamed pork wrapped in a wonton. It was really good, but I guess I forgot to take a photo. That happened a lot!

These ladies were hard at work rolling out dough and filling pastry. They were making Turkish Gozleme.

Gozleme is a handmade pastry as described below.

We didn't try the gozleme, but Grant did enjoy baklava and turkish tea.

We stopped in here to get a beer - the selection was pretty good!

Several Iowa craft beers were also available.

Next up was the $1 taste from Yanni's, chicken on a skewer.

This was excellent - you could really taste the marinade and fresh herbs.

I love hot from the oil egg rolls and these from Cafe Fuzion, a Lao/Thai vendor were pork and vegetable and very crispy.

Next up - Mexican!

This was the $1 taste chicken burrito. It was good, but I would rather have had a corn tortilla. I guess eating so many tacos and other food in Mexico has spoiled me - I love fresh corn tortillas.

On to Indian Delights.

Grant tried the $1 taste here - Vegetable Chaat. It's potatoes topped with onion, yogurt, tamarind sauce and chaat masala. Thumbs up.

We also tried the Pho lourie from A Different Taste, a Caribbean/Trinidad vendor. This is yellow split pea batter fried and served with tamarind sauce. They were kind of like a fritter, I liked them. Grant thought they were a little bland.

From the same place, this is their Beef Pie. It's crispy dough filled with a spicy beef filling. But neither of us thought it was very spicy.

More Mexican!

This was one of my favorite tastes of the day. A fresh corn tortilla filled with chicken, onions and cilantro. Muy bueno.

Grant wandered down to the Kabab House, an Indian/Mediterranean vendor and tried their $1 taste of Chana Masala - chick peas and garbanzo beans with ginger/garlic paste, cumin seeds and Indian herbs. He ate them all so they must have been good.

And guess what, more baklava. Grant can't resist that sticky nutty goodness.

I know we had a few more tastes by the time we gave up and called it quits, but like I said, sometimes I forgot to take a photo before the food was gone.

Hopefully you got a chance to enjoy all of the foodie fun at the World Food Festival 2011 - it really is a great way to try new foods, and taste different flavors of the world. Let us know if you went and what you tried - maybe even throw up a photo on our Facebook page if you have some!

We're ready for next year.

Comments

[Teresa]

I loved the World Food Festival! It was my first visit, and I can't wait until it's back again next year. I had every intention of trying all the $1 samples, but I got full before I could hit up all the booths! My faves: pierogis, gourmet marshmallows & cantalope with chili powder & lime. So good!

[Hammy]

Hi Guys,
Went Friday around 1:00pm, Taco Loco was great; I had the quesadilla & chorizo taco and my buddy had the 3 tacos (each one different), glad the kybo area had sinks to wash the grease (tasty, tasty grease) off our hands. Great eggrolls, springrolls, kabab $1 sample, bakllava, and Yanni's gyro...been goin for a few years and am glad they are keeping this going.
Hammy

[Amy]

Teresa, we ran out of room before we got to everything too! Darn. It was all so good.

Hammy, I really loved Taco Loco's fresh hot tortillas with their chicken taco. Taco trucks are awesome.