Feast London

When I first heard about Feast, I knew this was an event I really couldn’t miss. For four days Feast took over London’s historic and spectacular Tobacco Dock and filled it with the stalls from some of London’s finest restaurants and street food vendors. So on a miserable and rainy Thursday evening in March my sister, a friend and I trekked over to East London for an evening of culinary delights.

Arriving at Tobacco Dock it took a while to simply absorb the impressive interiors before I could even think about what I might want to eat first! The old warehouse made for a fantastic venue, providing a dramatic background for the whole event. After picking up a glass of red from the wine cellar and taking in all the tantalising treats on offer, we stopped off for our first course of the evening.

First up was Spit & Roast and one of their delicious sliders. Filled with a seriously generous portion of buttermilk fried chicken, fennel slaw and and a spicy Korean hot sauce. This was a perfect start to the evening. The chicken was tender and juicy and melted in the mouth and was complimented perfectly by its crispy coating and the hot sauce was a real fiery joy.

Caught in the act!

Next up we couldn’t resist Anna Mae’s mac’n’cheese. Having seen them stirring up the massive cheesy pans of pasta goodness and noticing the queues slowly forming, I headed straight over to grab us a tub with extra cheese and a crispy Parmesan and breadcrumb topping and a tub with basil pesto and crunchy bacon pieces to share. Pasta is pretty much my favourite thing in the world so this was truly heavenly! I’m also of the general opinion that adding bacon and/or cheese to anything can only vastly improve it.

After a little break from what had so far been carb central (and a few more glasses of vino) I fancied trying out something from one of the Asian stalls on offer. I finally settled on Miss Manchu and went for their seared lemongrass beef. Served on a bed of fresh crunchy vegetables and sprinkled with garlic roasted nuts and topped with a prawn cracker or two, this was tasty, light and refreshing.

Next stop: The Wright Brothers. Whilst famous for their oysters, that wasn’t what we sampled from this lovely stall. I’ve never tried oysters before and as I was still munching my way through Miss Manchu’s mini feast, decided now probably wasn’t the time to try. My sister however bought some of their crispy squid and let me taste a bit. I am actually quite gutted that I didn’t get a chance to have a whole one of these to myself it was that good. Perfectly cooked squid and the spices used to coat it were a dream.

Unable to leave without one we stopped by Pizza Pilgrims for a final savoury snack to share: a delicious stone baked pizza with artichoke hearts and oregano… yum. I’m a huge fan of artichokes and you don’t often find them so I’ll always jump and the chance to munch on some. Everything about this pizza was so perfectly fresh and watching them being made from scratch was awesome.

And then it was time for dessert…

I’d been eyeing up these crêpes all evening at La Crêpe des Delices and the three of us all agreed pretty early on that our plan for pudding would be one of these crêpes followed by a brownie from Caravan to take home (something else we’d our eye on all evening). I went for Nutella in my crêpe and there are simply no words to sufficiently describe the hot chocolately, nutty, sweet, pancakey goodness. If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know that I am, in general, a lover of all things savoury and you’ll be hard pushed to get me to favour something sweet over a savoury dish, so what I’m about to say is actually a pretty big deal: these crêpes were my favourite dish of the evening. Simply scrumptious. I couldn’t eat another bite so the brownie was saved for the next day!

I can’t wait until next time Feast comes to town so I can go back and try all the other things I wanted to get my hands on! More photos of the food I ate, the stalls I didn’t manage to squeeze in and of the spectacular surroundings of Tobacco Dock can be seen here.

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