food festival Archives - Munchies and Munchkins

I’ve recently returned from the ultimate food filled weekend in Belfast. I was invited as a guest of Tourism Ireland along with Kacie from The Rare Welshbit to check out the first year of Belfeast Food and Drink festival.

Held in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter, Belfeast celebrated the best of local food and drink. We sat through fascinating food demonstrations, strolled around the artisan food market and ate at Michelin starred restaurants…oh and I may have eaten the best ever Pork Crackling that exists anywhere.

The day started with a very early flight from Cardiff, the sun was shining, I had a window seat and the day had a good vibe about it. And coffee…lots of coffee.

On arrival in Belfast we checked into The Bullitt, a too cool for school boutique hotel right in the centre of Belfast. Every aspect of the hotel has been carefully considered with both style and comfort in mind and I’d love to return. The rooms are modern, airy and the bathrooms whilst missing a bath are huge with gorgeous rainfall showers – for once I actually enjoyed the shower experience. Breakfast in the Bullitt is slightly different to other hotels, you hang a slip on your door each day to say what time you would like your breakfast bag to be delivered. The breakfast bag contains juice, fruit and oats and yoghurt which is great if you are in a rush or not too hungry in the mornings.

After checking in and enjoying a blissful cup of Irish Breakfast tea we headed to our first stop on the itinerary – The Belfast Food Tour. The Belfast food tour is such an experience, you meet at the market and get taken on a whirlwind tour of food and drink in Belfast. Getting to try things I wouldn’t have normally chosen was my favourite part. Here are a few pics of the tour:

The most incredible brownies I have EVER tasted from Co Couture. We just had a small chunk but it was so rich that it satisfied every sweet craving that I have.

A selection of some of Ireland’s best cheeses:

Our hostess with the mostess:

This was an ulster fry on a stick from the Market and it was absolutely delicious, worth a visit JUST for that:

We also visited some proper old fashioned pubs and this fairly special whisky shop:

After the food tour, when we were already indecently full we called into The Curated Kitchen. The Curated Kitchen had only been open a few weeks when we arrived but word of mouth spreads quickly and this place is popular and for very good reason. It’s a bit different, they have a weekly menu made up of recipes from cookbooks that they love. This is how they describe themselves:

We search at home and abroad for cookbooks, produce and ingredients that are remarkable not just for their taste but also for their story, something that we then aim to celebrate and share with our guests.

We look forward to welcoming you to the Curated Kitchen; good food for the social & curious.

If this was in my local area I could see myself there once a week easily! Our first visit was brief and we had coffee served with deep fried italian dumplings – like doughnuts almost:

We headed back to the hotel soon after to relax before what I would consider the highlight of our visit – dinner at The Ox.

Before dinner we headed to an incredible hotel for cocktails. The Merchant is probably up there with being one of the fanciest hotels I’ve stepped foot in and the cocktail menu is spectacular. It was just the right way to start off a great night.

The Ox is a bit special. Opened in 2013 by good friends Stephen Toman and Alain, it has won a whole host of awards and acclaim in the last five years. Including a Michelin star. It is probably one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten and I’ve had my fair share. But it isn’t stuffy or uptight in the way that you can find in similar restaurants and thats what makes it great. The kitchen is open, the staff friendly and full of smiles and food and wine knowledge. It is a pleasure to dine here and that is before we even get to the food. We were served dishes including seasonal ingredients produced in an incredibly appetising way. The scallop bisque was special as was the Mourne Mountain Lamb and my 70% chocolate dessert served with Jerusalem Artichoke ice cream just blew me away. Every morsel of food was tasty, packed with flavour and thought. The wine to accompany was excellent although as usual I could not keep up with the rest of the table. It was the perfect end to a food filled day.

Day two began with glorious sunshine streaming through my window, we definitely chose the right time to visit Belfast. With the memories of yesterday and the incredible coffee still in our heads we decided to go for a cooked breakfast in The Curated Kitchen to start our day off right. And YES that was the best decision. I could eat this cooked breakfast over and over. I opted for Boxty ( a traditional Irish potato pancake) served with kale in a delightfully creamy sauce and it was mouthwateringly good. So good I want to go back right now and eat it again.

After breakfast we headed to The Mac Belfast for some food demonstrations which were part of the food festival. I LOVE food demos and could easily sit for hours watching. Funnily enough one of the chefs began making Boxty soon after we sat down and I was very glad I had a full belly as it smelled delicious.

After a few hours of demos we headed out into the artisan food quarter, where of course we ate more food:

The food quarter was full of stalls selling cheeses and chutneys as well as brownies, cakes and drinks. It was gloriously sunny and there was a happy, family vibe around the area.

Next up on our itinerary was a cheese and beer pairing at The Black Box. One of the events you could book as part of Belfeast and run by Boundary Brewery and Mike’s Fancy Cheese Co. Now this was a lot of fun. I love cheese, any kind of cheese and I think my favourite was one which was rolled in ash..sounds very weird but tastes amazing. The beer was fairly strong and we walked out feeling ever so slightly giggly.

Dinner that evening was at Babel inside of the Bullitt. I do love when you can have a meal at your hotel especially when you are feeling a bit worn out from the day. Babel was lively and buzzing on a Saturday night although I was so full of food that I struggled to eat much …but I had an amazing Coffee cocktail to finish. Following on from Babel we headed to Cave which is the wine bar attached to The Ox, it was a lovely way to end the day and it was their 5th birthday so we helped to celebrate and even had a slice of cake!

The next day we woke early and headed off to Titanic Belfast. This was a really different experience and I am glad we went. I did find it a little harrowing in parts but that is to be expected and mainly it was just interesting. The building itself is rather spectacular and I couldn’t resist taking a few photos outside:

After our visit we were zooming off once more and this time it was to Belfast Cookery School for a seafood chowder workshop as part of Belfeast. Despite a late arrival after some transport problems we really enjoyed watching the process and eating the results!

Our next stop was at the Ulster museum to visit the Game Of Thrones tapestry. I’ve been exited about this since they first launched it last year and it was so much fun for an obsessive GOT fan to stroll around the rather impressive tapestry.

After our museum visit we headed to our final stop. The Bull & Ram restaurant. By the time we sat down it is fair to say we were absolutely exhausted. It had been a very busy weekend and we were hungry and tired. The Bull & Ram was the ideal end to the weekend. The food was off the scale good. Like how you imagine the perfect Sunday lunch to be. I started with pork crackling which is going take some beating, I would be surprised if I find it that good again served with homemade apple sauce and followed by a beef dinner with ALL the trimmings.

And then it was time to head home, weary and around half a stone heavier I think!

Thanks to Tourism Ireland and everyone who hosted us and treated us with such warmth and welcome. I’ll be back for sure!

My trip was sponsored by Tourism Ireland.

Do you know when have such a good (and tasty) time that you don’t really know where to start explaining it? This is what The Big Feastival was for me …ok so you all know I’m a food nerd but wowzer this food/music festival has just fuelled my foodie passion and I really really hope at some point I will be able to do food related work full time – eating, writing, cooking what could be better?

I was Very Very lucky to receive an invite to the perfect festival combo .. Gastronomical delights and top tunes organised by the legendary Jamie Oliver and cool cat Alex James. The invite came just the day before the festival kicked off so an incredibly busy day of packing and hotel hunting and we were off to beautiful Oxfordshire and Alex’s farm where he makes his wonderful cheese.

On arrival at the festival site we were greeted at the gates with free biscuits from Fudges bakery..what better welcome hey? I’ll explain more about Fudges later as there products are so darn good. The first few hours were spent exploring the site, trying samples of the best food in Oxfordshire as well as treating ourselves to Barbacoas Pulled pork (for Andrew) and The cinnamon clubs Tandoori spiced black leg chicken kathi roll with green coriander chutney for me ..bit of a mouthful but extremely tasty.

Dishes on offer from The Cinnamon Club:

We then went on to watch our first chefs demonstration of the day at The Big Kitchen sponsored by Electrolux which was none other than Jamie Oliver and the marvellous, flirtatious Gennaro Contaldo. It was incredible to watch some talented chefs up close and to see their obvious passion for what they do. The demonstration was hilarious as the duo have such a cheeky bantering friendship and we were even lucky enough to get a pic with Gennaro:

The rest of the day was spent eating more samples of delicious cheeses and mouthwatering truffle oils and going to more demos including Mark Sargeant who is a really fun chef to watch as well as another by Gennaro Contaldo and Jamie Oliver.

Although there was music on the main stage all day long including The Noisettes and Paloma Faith it was pretty much just background noise for us as our real focus was on the food but it did create a great atmosphere and there was a large crowd at the main stage all day long. We finished off the evening with some more food sharing Porchetta and polenta chips from Jamie’s Italian and Rajasthani style Herdwick lamb and corn curry with pilau rice from The Cinnamon Club..both were incredibly good.

We also met Valentine Warner but unfortunately arrived just a little too late for his demo 🙁

We decided to call it a night then as Izzy was getting tired and trundled on back to our b&b in Bampton.. Now don’t go thinking we are too posh to camp! We would have loved to but it was full so a b&b it was!

The next day we headed to the site as it opened to make the most of the beautiful day. I think we somehow managed a very impressive amount of freebies and samples without even trying!

We tried so many different pies from The Piglet Pantry (who sell award winning pies don’t ya know..)And they were all so good that trying to decide which ones to buy was very difficult! We somehow managed and Andrew had a chilli n cheese combo whilst I tried the gammon and leek.. Both delicious. We bought seasalt chocolate from Seed and Bean which was delicious and we also tried seasalt fudge – can you see a theme? Ha. We had (well I had) cocktails from Vestal Vodka and Makers whisky which were beautiful and we tried crab from Cafe Mor .. Which is a big thing for non seafood eaters like us but they were from Pembrokeshire and voted best street food of the year so it would have been rude not to try and you know what it was pretty nice!

For all you non foodies out there the second day did include some pretty spectacular music..Texas and Razorlight to name just two and also lots n lots for the kiddies including a dance session with Adam Garcia! I do believe more of the Adam Garcia fans were of the adult female kind than the children but it was a good excuse hey.

Anyway back to the food and possibly the high point of the festival for me as we strolled down the field we saw a bright yellow Robin Reliant and a few photographers clustered around.. Nosy as always we stopped to look and with remarkably good timing as five minutes later around a few hundred other people joined us but you know what I was right at the front ..yay for an impromptu cooking demo by Jamie Oliver. Woop. It was fabulous to be up close and watching the man in action literally within splatter distance of the food. He was a cheeky charmer and had the crowd eating out of his hand especially when he began to give out plates of the food. I was lucky enough to get a falafel wrap passed to me directly and Andrew had a bowl of the veggie curry. Both were obviously amazing.

The last two demos we saw were by Paul Young ( master chocolatier) and The Weber Grill academy. The chocolate ganache created by Paul was delicious and I picked up lots of tips ready for my first attempt at making chocolates. He also had a lovely pic with Izzy:

The Weber demo was also really interesting and wow we really want a Weber now. Beer can chicken and blackened peppers were on the menu and again lots of BBQ tips.

I could probably talk for a few thousand more words about the food we ate and what we saw at this wonderful weekend but I’d probably start to bore you so I’ll leave you with a brief summary of my favourite new food/drink producers:

Drinks from……

Vestal Vodka – beautiful, crisp and pure vodka cocktails. Seriously good.
Samuelsons of Witney – proper strong lemonade. I tried sparkling blackberry and it was tongue tingling.
Scheckters – 100% natural organic energy drinks. Kinda like redbull but without all the rubbish they pump into it. Tasted pretty nice too.
Eager – fruit juices for adults and kids which are healthy and taste good too. I hope these are available to buy readily in a few months for Izzy.

Food from..

Fudges biscuit makers- ahh these were incredible. We have had the crackers with cheese to snack on,the biscuits dipped in tea and the straws well whenever we feel like it 🙂
The English Provender Co – these chutneys/condiments aren’t new to me as they are stocked in all major supermarkets but I did try some new flavours from them which I enjoyed.
Fair&Square chocolate brownies – we had a seasalt brownie which was scrummy.
Isles of Scilly handmade fudge – this fudge was probably the best I’ve tasted. I’ve tried lots.
Karantania Deli – delicious bakery bits.. I tried a butternut squash/feta combo and it was dreamy. Their food is also incredibly pretty.
Seed&Bean – extra dark chocolate. The Cornish seasalt is addictive.
Greedy Goat icecream – guilt free goats milk ice cream.. I tried basil and lemon. Refreshing and different.
The flour bin – now I am yet to try using the flour but I tried the bread made from the flour and it was amazing and I’ve smelt the malty goodness of the flour so I’m excited to try!

There were so many more producers and stalls that we loved but these were our favourites and included food we actually bought rather than samples.

All in all it was an amazing weekend and one I hope to repeat next year 🙂

Early bird tickets are on sale now: The Big Feastival

A Food Filled Weekend In Belfast – Belfeast 2018

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Foodies heaven at The Big Feastival

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