Foodbuzz Festival 2011 Welcome Reception, Dinner and Blogger Award Ceremony

After our adventure at Fisherman’s Wharf, we were going to attempt to hit up Tartine but decided we didn’t have enough time to go there and back before dinner. And, after last year’s debacle with the shuttles, I was absolutely not going to be late for the shuttles this year.

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After relaxing at the hotel for a bit and then a quick outfit change, I headed out with my roomies to the Foodbuzz Festival 2011 Welcome Reception, Dinner and Blogger Award Ceremony.

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We were greeted with snacks and wine.

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I went with the white option.

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We grabbed a table…

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…and then food. The focus was on hummus thanks to sponsor Sabra. I had veggies, a hummus tart, and chicken salad mini sandwich, which were all tasty.

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{Me, Mara, Farihah, Megan, and Emily}

And one of the best parts was meeting so many fellow food-loving bloggers! I had so much fun hearing about what they did (in real life), where they lived, and what their blogs were about. Not to mention I got to see a lot of my blog friends that I’ve met before but don’t get to see very often since we live so far apart.

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{Aubrey, me, Ilana}

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{me, Ayah, Kailey, Mara}

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After the welcome reception, we headed upstairs for the main-event eats.

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There were a couple stations with different small bite plates of food.

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I fit as much as I could on one plate (Tuscan beef stew, Butternut Squash Orzo, Brown Sugar Butter Roasted Chicken, Baked Four Cheese Macaroni, Whipped Potatoes with Pecorino Cheese on Meatloaf Muffins, Potato & broccoli soup)…

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….and in my stomach.

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I hit up the cook station area in search of scallops and pork belly.

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Cha-ching!

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I found both.

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And then, even though I was feeling pretty full and trying to save room for dessert, I grabbed a couple things off the other table I missed.

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Housemade Beet Ravioli and Mai’s Roll (Vietnamese spring roll).

All the eats (except maybe the scallops and pork belly?) were creations by fellow bloggers, so it was really cool to taste their recipes-brought-to-life. I think my favorite was the meatloaf, which just happened to be the recipe by my roomie, Mara.

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We heard from the Federated Media CEO…

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and Jennifer of Tiny Urban Kitchen who won Project Food Blog (and donated the money to a great cause – you can read more about it by clicking here – she’s so cool)…

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…and then we had the awards ceremony. You can check out the full list of nominees and the winners by clicking here. Congrats to the winners!

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After the awards, they brought out dessert.

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I wanted to try one of everything and I think I nearly succeeded. I believe I only missed one. My favorites were the cheesecake and chocolate cake. Yea, I had two favorites.

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After wrapping up eats, congratulating the award winners, and catching up with some blog friends, it was time to discuss what to do for the night. This working girl had been feeling on the brink of coming down with something for the last week or so, so I decided to call it a night and head to the hotel. I ended up staying up a bit late to catch up on some blog posts, but I was still happy to do it from the comfort of my bed. 🙂

Next up – a trip to the Ferry Building and breakfast at the farmer’s market.

Reader question: If you weren’t at Foodbuzz, based on the photos/descriptions you’ve seen (here and on other blogs), which food item would you most like to try? If you were at Foodbuzz, which one was your favorite?

5 thoughts on “Foodbuzz Festival 2011 Welcome Reception, Dinner and Blogger Award Ceremony”

  1. HA I was SO CAREFUL ABOUT THE SHUTTLES too, for that exact reason! LOL!

    Also, I’m so upset that I didn’t realize they had pork belly! I skipped that station ’cause of the line, but I’d’ve stood in a huge line for pork belly! The Tuscan Beef Stew was incredible, though. Loved the whole comfort food table.

    Reply
  2. My favorites by far were the pork belly and the purple macarons– I can’t remember what flavor that was! Everything was really fantastic, though. Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to try the beet ravioli, which everyone at my table was raving about.

    Reply
  3. The above comment copied Karen’s blog title by accident! Sorry Karen here is the corrected comment!

    Hi! I follow your blog but didn’t get to meet you in SF! Maybe next time! I loved the beet ravioli and the lentil “t0-go” boxes. I was so sad I missed the macarons though!

    Reply

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