Tasting Pavilion at the Metreon

The tasting pavilion was an amazing experience.  After a light breakfast at the Saturday morning sessions, I was excited to get a little food in my stomach!  Luckily I was able to bring a plus one to this event so I invited my friend Jon.  There were so many great vendors there to try!  Here are some pictures of the amazing things I tasted at the Metreon.

 

Some of my favorite booths worth mentioning were:

- The homemade salsa.  Not only was it delicious but the woman who owned it told us her life story about how she was a teacher.  If the kids were good they’d get treats, and if they were bad they had to clean the pottery room.  Kids would come back to visit and insist that she start selling some of her food.  Her son designed her label and it’s been growing since then.  They are available in the San Francisco area so try some if you are local!

- Elaine’s Toffee.  I don’t even like toffee, but I decided to taste it on a whim.  It was soooo delicious I want to find a way to incorporate it into some baked good…or inspire you to do some and send me a sample…

- The Australian Lamb was really tasty.

- There were a lot of wine sodas made from the grapes that don’t reach the right maturity for wine-making.  They tasted just like their respective flavors such as pinot noir, cabernet, etc. and were really cool!

- Whole milk hand made ricotta..after trying it I think it’s possible that I’ve never even had whole milk ricotta.  So smooth and creamy.

- Sabra spinach and artichoke hummus….ENOUGH SAID!

- Artisan sprinkles!

- GOAT CHEESE!

I tried to put all the pictures in an album, but for some reason it wasn’t letting me post them like that…hmm.  Sorry for small picture overload, but I wanted you guys to see all the delicious goodies!  There was a great deck outside the tasting area so after trying one bite of everything we sat outside to have a seat and regroup.  Note to self – bring an empty tote bag next year.  I had SO many free samples, coupons, and informational pamphlets in my purse and poor Jon had no bag so he just loaded up his pockets with as much as he could.

The only critique about the event that I had was that there weren’t enough trash cans!  There was one trash can in the middle of the room, and there were servers going around collecting trash off high top tables.  There were hardly any high top tables as it was and since you were moving from booth to booth, it was have been efficient to have a trash can at each booth.  Who wants to carry around a bunch of plates, cups, spoons, and napkins???  After the tasting pavilion, Jon and I had some fun exploring the city!  More on that coming soon!