Wednesday 30 June 2010

BBC Summer Good Food Show

This post comes in really late, merely because of my laziness and also cos I was a tad too busy the past 2 weeks. Anyways, like I'd mentioned before..Reena of Coconut Raita was giving away two tickets to the Good Food Show and I, won it! I was ecstatic because I NEVER win anything. This show was in Birmingham, about 2 hrs north of London and since my good friend and fellow blogger Swar of Swars kitchen was living in Coventry, I decided to drag her as well...some good girly time. I have forever been a fan of BBC Saturday Kitchen Live and so the Chef line up was pretty interesting. I had to catch James Martin, Thomasina Miers and the Hairy Bikers, if not anyone else. So off we went to Birmingham for a day filled with loadsa food, drinks and wait-for-it....shopping!!!!
Got there at around 11 and my first impression was, ' gosh its filled with oldies...is this some sorta boring thing?' And then we realised there was a garden show in the next pavilion and assumed they were here for the flower show instead. Wrong we were! 
The advantage of this show (like the Regents Park Taste of London and the Hampton Court Foodies Fest) is the free tasting sessions each and every supplier provides. I mean you just have to walk through and every stall offers you something to eat, drink, smell etc. We completely took advantage of that and after about 2 hrs we were slightly tipsy from the numerous wines, cider, vodka and fancy liqueurs that were offered to us..needless to say, being asked for the id at a few places made us feel great but annoying after a point of time (its nice to know they still think you are under 21 or so). We picked up some taster pizza slices from Dr Oetker's Ristaurante Pizza, grabbed a sandwich and sat down to watch one of the Chefs from a well known Gastro Pub in London cook Salmon in a mussel sauce with some risotto and the works. 
He asked someone from the audience to cook along with him, but we chickened out, but got to taste what he cooked which was yummeee. 

We walked around again, had some ice cold Pimms, picked up some cupcake liners, Swar bought yummy strawberry and cream liqueur, did some more tasting and conveniently missed the Hairy Bikers' Show.

I bragged about it so much to Ro i had to atleast catch a glimpse of them, but again got side tracked when i saw Toffee vodka...now you very rarely get to taste stuff like that right?

Then I got my priorities right and settled down to see Thomasina Miers, previous MasterChef winner and owner of Wahaca- an up market Mexican restaurant chain in London (I have reviewed it here and I actually didn't have a pleasant experience at her fancy pansy restaurant, but I still had to see some celebrity chef do some cooking). So we sat there and watched some guests from the audience do their bit of cooking and Thomasina give them tips etc etc.



And Andi Peters who was supposedly the runner up of one of the MasterChef sessions was doing give aways and asking us questions and Swar and me were so scared whether we would be pulled up to answer since we were sitting right up front. 

But we left half way through because we were hungry again (its the drinking i tell ya) and so had this amazing crepe with banana, toffee and ice cream and I said I wanted to come back to watch James Martin perform but it wasn't on for another hour or so and so we walked through the Gardeners Live area which seemed to amuse me much better than the food and so I ended up clicking more pics of the Garden and the awesome flowers than the food show itself.  Sorry if you are getting bored!








And then we found out I could catch any train back to London and so off we went to Birmingham city centre and shopped liked mad in the huge mega mall...yes I know what you must be thinking...my priorities are all screwed..well who wants to choose food over shopping with a girl friend? well I did and had the time of my life the 2 hrs we spent at the mall. James Martin and Hairy Bikers, I can still watch on BBC but the girl bonding, which I was so deprived of, that i get once in a while, I was def not gonna miss. 
All in all I had a blast, but if you ask me whether id go for a food show like this again..well unless I get free tickets I don't think id want to because its almost all the same, the tasting sessions, the master class sessions etc..well unless Gordon Ramsey decides to grace the occasion, then I might just drop in to hear him say 'The F Word.' :)

17 comments:

the blogger formerly known as sansmerci said...

yay nish! m gettin all nice memories of that day now readin this.. n yes i think the two best things bout the day was the free tastings and the shopping!!!! had a blast of a time shopping happily after yrs i think :) thanks to u :D we shud so do this again sometime!

Vrinda said...

Thanx for sharing dear,lucky uuuu

Umm Mymoonah said...

Wow! That's fantastic, you are very lucky, you must have really enjoyed your day.

Sarah Naveen said...

oh wow!!! u lucky girl!!! i can see the excitement all in ur words...temme about the girl bonding..;) beautiful pics as well

Pavithra Elangovan said...

Hey fantastic post and wonderful pictures.. looks soooo good...and Wish I am there tooo....wonderful pictures..

Shabs.. said...

I have been waiting fo rthis post all long and i see no James martin:(....No probs!!!!....I love that chap like anything and loev satday kitchen!!!.......i can see all ur thrill in the post....lol...

Sayantani Mahapatra Mudi said...

lucky you! your excitement is could be felt in your words. love the potted flowers. they are gorgeous.

Unknown said...

I really enjoyed reading this post. You are so very lucky :)

Cool Lassi(e) said...

looks like u had an awesome time. why did u chicken out? u should've joined the chef at work.girl bonding is the best! u should do that often with sanmerci.

Priya Suresh said...

Woww wat a fabulous post, seems u had a great time there, thanks for this beautiful clicks..

Suja Manoj said...

Wow!fantastic post..you are very lucky dear...beautiful pic

J said...

Hi...nice to stumble on your blog. Being a fellow Londoner, I like the way you write. Will visit more :)

Lawyer Loves Lunch said...

I totally love food shows and exhibitions. I wish I worked for a food company so going to these things would just be part of my job. This show looks particularly fun! :)

PJ said...

great, looks like you had a wonderful time and some girl-bonding (yes, absolutely a must ;))

Unknown said...

wonderful!...loved all ur clicks, hard to say which i loved the most ;)

Rach said...

Must say u were lucky :) I love food shows, food fair, food food food anythin and everythin about food! Guess, I should envy u for that now :D, lol

Sarah, Maison Cupcake said...

The summer good food show looks fun, I MUST make sure I get to go to the next one, I keep being busy on the day but am going to put it in my calendar for next time.