Food Festival Fabulousness continued…with less fabulousness

On Sunday, I made my way over to the NYC Culinary Festival at Pier 94. This festival had a $20 entrance fee, but I thought the cost would be worth it to learn information about and taste food from the more exclusive restaurants in the city. Not to mention, there were some interesting lectures scheduled. However, at the end of the day I would have preferred to pay money to walk around the free International Food Festival in Hell’s Kitchen-there the crowd was interesting and the food hot. At the NYC Culinary Festival, the food was expensive (on top of the fee) and often cold and unenthusiastically presented. I did find one restaurant that I definitely want to check out soon, Gobo. Gobo has two locations in nyc, the UES and the West Village. I had the opportunity to try its avocado carpaccio, and it made me want to go back for the entire restaurant experience. The food reminded me of the Green Zebra in Chicago, a restaurant that I highly recommend if you are ever in that fabulous city.

The food tasting at the Culinary Festival was okay, but the real highlight of my experience was the talk entitled “Outsmarting Wine in Restaurants” given by Mark Oldman. I now want to go all over nyc and order Prosecco throughout dinner. He calls it Prozaco. His website www.markoldman.com is full of all sorts of interesting information about wine. I went home from the festival and immediately checked it out. Furthermore, this man is not only into wine, but he also has his JD from Stanford, is co-director of a company and has books out on internships. Now, he tours the country to talk about wine. I am just a little bit impressed… and/or want his life.