On Sunday the 4th of June me and Gordy (my boyfriend) were planning a day in Newcastle as he had won a hotel stay at Motel One in a charity auction at work. I was given the task of finding something to do for the day. Originally I was just planning on booking us in for a meal somewhere, but then I stumbled across the Newcastle Foodies Festival, I was sold at the mention of food!
It was such a good day, and we were especially lucky that we had some good weather for it, something that doesn't happen often in our part of the world. The festival was in Exhibition Park in Newcastle city centre, so it was very easy to get to on public transport or if you park anywhere in the city it is only a short walk away.
There is an entrance fee of £14 for a standard day ticket, although you could also buy tickets for the full three day weekend and VIP tickets were available. For us the standard one day ticket was enough. Although £14 may seem a little pricey I felt it was definitely worth it, it was the best food festival I have been to, I wish i had gone all three days as there was a ton of stuff to do and eat that we didn't get round to. A word of warning, if you plan to eat and drink a lot this is not a cheap day out, we ended up spending quite a bit but came away very full.
Since we only had the day to explore and try out some of the incredible food that the stalls had to offer, we didn't really get a chance to take part in some of the talks and demonstrations that were going on the time. As well as all the street food they had a Vintage Tea tent which looked so cute, a vintage cider tent and many restaurant tents. In addition to this they also had a drinks theatre, a chefs theatre where they had contestants from Master Chef giving talks and a cakes and deserts theatre with the 2016 Great British Bake Off winner Candice Brown. Even though we didn't really get a chance to do any of these things I was very impressed with the range of activities they had to offer. If watching the demonstrations wasn't really your thing and all you wanted to do was try the great selection of food and drink the Foodie's Festival also put on a line up of great music acts to sit and enjoy in the sun.
Now that I have explained in general what the Newcastle Foodies Festival was all about I thought I would share with you some of the things that we got up to, in other words everything we stuffed our faces with.
Don't worry I didn't eat all of these things to myself, we bought them to share (I did eat most of it though). I will go left to right, the first thing on our menu was Gordy's choice, a bread cone filled with Barvarian sausage and cheese, it was incredible, anything that comes in a bread cone gets a thumbs up from me. The second was my choice, a lobster roll it was worth the entire £12 we paid for it, yes that's right £12 for a sandwich. Lastly, after Gordy went exploring the stalls he came back from a Mac 'n' Cheese van that I had totally missed, if you know me you know that mac 'n' cheese is one of my favourite foods, if a restaurant has it on the menu I will always order it. When I go to the states it has now become a mission to find the best mac 'n' cheese. This one came pretty high on the list, an Italian version filled with green pesto, mozzarella and fried onions, it was to die for.
As Jimmy Buffet famously said 'It's 5 o'clock somewhere' and in my eyes that means anytime is a good time for a Margarita. Margarita's are my favourite alcoholic beverage so when I seen the Tequila Shack I was in heaven. I just went for the traditional Margarita and this was one fine cocktail, but my word it was strong.
The very last thing I ate that day was a waffle with Nutella, whipped cream and white chocolate crunch pieces. This was a little disappointing if I am honest, but that could be because I so full at that point that I couldn't fully enjoy it. The stall was really cool though and the deserts were really reasonably priced.
Before we left I wanted to get something to take home, I did contemplate getting cheese but I finally decided on something sweet. I am a fiend for macarons so when I seen this stall I couldn't resist, they had some weird and wonderful flavours including and Iron Bru flavour and they were all amazing. I also decided to get some fudge, particularly after tasting their Pineapple and Malibu flavour. You got three giant slabs for £10 so it was hard to say no. I ended up taking home a slab of Baileys, Raspberry and Mango and the Pineapple and Malibu. I am still working my way through them almost three weeks on so they were definitely a good investment.
Have you been to any food festivals recently? Or do you have any coming up? Let me know as I am definitely looking out for more to go to.
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