Real Food Festival: Southbank, London

Real Food Festival

Date of Visit: 23^rd August 2013

Ambience

We made a visit to the festival on the first day of opening so I was half expecting it to be heaving with people but the crowd was wieldy and we didn’t find it difficult finding a seat at the limited seating areas dotted around the stalls. 

One thing I will moan about is the lack of signage to point people in the right direction of the stalls.  As we exited Waterloo station, we were met with three rows of stalls and having done the canny thing of walking past every stall before deciding what looks/smells tempting, we wondered why some of the vendors mentioned on the website were not in sight.  We walked up the stairs to see if we could see further stalls but with no luck, we settled for what was available in sight but it was only towards the end that we discovered the main bulk of the vendors were set up along the river.  The atmosphere on that side was much livelier.

I liked the way that many vendors offered free tasters before you committed to parting your cash and it was indeed a smart move given all the competition around.  Be shameless and try a few things if you’re unsure.

Food

We started with a beef bulgogi burrito wrap (£6) which was fairly good but it could have done with a tad more flavouring.  This was washed down with real cider which was easy to go down and very reasonable priced (£1.50 for half pint, £3 for a pint).  Next up was a gourmet beef burger with cheese (£5) which was only ordered given we couldn’t see the other burger vendors we had eyed up on the website but when I asked the guy if there were other stalls around, he said “yeah up the stairs, and towards to the river front” – Damn why didn’t we ask the question before we ordered the burger?!  We were gutted as the burger we had ordered was pretty average and that was both in taste and appearance!

Venturing to the other side, we tried the Duck Confit burger from The Frenchie (£6) which was served with sweet onion chutney, smoked cheddar (or goats cheese if you preferred), all crammed in a toasted brioche bun.  It was tasty and the sweetness of the chutney worked well with the savoury-ness of the duck and cheese and for good measure, the bun was toasted unlike the gourmet beef burger place! We then tried a pork skewer from Pig a Chic served with a pot of sauce of your choice of hotness - we opted for the medium (£1.50 per skewer) and it was nice and succulent.

We passed The Bell & Brisket stall with envy as the burger looked as amazing and tasty as it was described but we were gutted that we couldn’t possibly stomach another burger so we had to sadly pass on it :(

Instead, we decided to try the Churros from Churros Garcia (£4 for a pot) which was served with a pot of hot chocolate dip.  It was freshly made which was great but it was too much for one to handle – at the end of the day, there is a lot of oil in Churros.. I say it’s best shared between 3-4 people.  Out of everything we ate, I thought this was the least value for money given the content of it.

Summary

I love going to food festivals or anywhere where you can choose food from the senses of smell and appearance (as opposed to relying on fancy, creative descriptions on a menu).  Best of all, there was no entrance fee to this one and I found food prices very reasonable, being in the heart of London and all. I will keep my eyes peeled for the next event and you should too :)