Cardiff Food and Drink Festival!

 What I got up to in Cardiff Bay this weekend!

Friday 12th July marked the beginning of the weekend long food festival in Cardiff Bay. I had graduated the day before and stayed in a hotel overnight so that I could make sure that I definitely attend the festival on the Friday as I had heard good things but missed the previous two years due to unavailability.

Everyone in the UK will know about the heatwave we currently have - and will continue to have until the end of the month (Yes! Finally some good weather!). This is why I'm glad we went on the Friday when most people were in work, the food festival is a popular event, so imagine more than a thousand people crammed into the fairly small area on a really hot Saturday...sweat central- no thanks!

When we went on the Friday it was already fairly busy but not unbearably so. We got a good look into a few of the stalls and then tried some samples of liqueurs and chutneys (I tried an apricot liqueur that tasted nice and refreshing at first but then slowly burned its way down my throat). As I was expecting due to the hot weather, the ice cream stalls were getting slammed and had a few queues forming. However that could have been due to the fact that they were all homemade and had a number of different flavours on offer!

A few stalls caught my eye:

The Chocolate Brownie Company 
 

I had a chocolate craving as soon as I saw this stall! They had a huge number of flavours on hand and if you didn't fancy buying a box of brownies you could buy a sample pot for £1 which included a brownie of your choice with cream and a strawberry. A really cute idea! I went for a minty flavour and wasn't disappointed at all with the flavour! It mixed really nicely with the cream and strawberry as well!

If you fancy finding out more about The Chocolate Brownie company then check out their Facebook and Twitter.

Samosaco

I just want to say beforehand that the gentleman who ran this stall was an absolute treat! He had no problem telling me about how he came up with the ideas behind the different fillings in each samosa, particularly the chocolate samosas with coconut filling that were on offer that day! In the end how could I not walk away with something?! Everything looked amazing but in the end I picked a 'Bombay Aloo' samosa. I would advise that if you don't like spice then don't pick this particular flavour, but if you're like me and you like a kick then go for it because it does not lack flavour!

Fancy trying one of these smashing samosas? (See what I did there?!) Check out Samosaco's Facebook and Twitter.

Natural Game

This stall intrigued me when I first saw it, and it must have done the same for a few people because there was always a crowd when I went back to have a look! Exotic meats have become somewhat of a fashion in the food world at the moment, with beef slowly becoming the boring choice for a burger, many restaurants are starting to offer wild boar instead!

This stall had absolutely loads on offer including springbok, dark chocolate stuffed pheasant and I'm fairly sure I saw some giraffe on offer as well! I'm sure you're wondering about the dark chocolate stuffed pheasant because I certainly was! The gentleman at the counter told me that they ask a group of around 12 people to come up with ideas of things they'd like to try, the ideas are then materialized and the same people are asked to try the products created. This must mean that chocolate and pheasant must go nicely eh?!

This is a stall that my dad would have absolutley loved but unfortunately he missed out on the day. So it's lucky quite lucky for him and everyone else that you can MAKE YOUR OWN ROAST on the website! Sorry I got a bit over excited there!

I would have liked to have tried more, including a very tempting garlic stall (I'm a sucker for garlic) but at this point due to a lot of heat and food I was about ready to go to bed! (I've become an old lady since graduating!).

Let me know if you went to the food festival!