Hot Sauce and Brew Doggers...

Hop Sauce Festival

I am not sure if they could come up with a better combination of things to offer a festival for than they did last year for the Hop Sauce Festival in LBI on Memorial Day weekend. Tons of hot sauces, tons of local beers, good food and a hot sunny day made this a perfect little festival. They also had all kinds of vendors and things to buy set up as well, so it was fun for all ages and types of people.

Most places had hot sauces to sample on different items, as well as food offerings from certain places, my favorite of which was the fish taco from El Swell, a newly opened fish taco place from the same owners and one of my other LBI favorites, Howard's. The taco was filled with just the right amount of fish and topped with a flavorful slaw. The fish was battered lightly, and the batter didn’t come off the fish at all when it was bitten. Adding a little lime and hot sauce made for a tasty taco experience.

I found quite a few new beers that I enjoyed that day as well. I was amazed at how many local breweries were there and how good some of the beers that they were offering were. Kone became my new favorite, with their head high IPA, deliciously hoppy and strong, they really packed a wallop.

This is a really fun and different event than I have been to before. Unfortunately I missed it this year as I was getting married, but I will definitely be going back next year. Check it out, its not one to miss! Cheers!

Great Sandwiches Indeed...

I wanted to take a moment to offer my apologies for the lack of posts over the last few weeks. I got married, so the fiance became the wife! Then we took our honeymoon, and spent a week catching up on things around the house. Now I am back and ready to get back to it, so thanks for baring with me...

The Great Sandwiches Event

I am always on the lookout for good food events in the city of Philadelphia. We are really blessed to have such amazing offerings on a regular basis, and last year I really got to experience some good ones. It was the inaugural year of the Great Sandwiches event, an evening filled with items between slices of bread, and an overall competition between some so called sandwich masters; Brad Spence, Eli Kulp and Scott Schroeder. They participated in a Chopped style competition where they were given weird ingredients and asked to make a tasty sandwich for the judges to taste. I wish the crowd would have been able to taste these offerings, but it was still fun to watch. Eli Kulp wound up the winner, combining the secret ingredients of green tomatoes, spam and marmite in sandwich form to win the judges over.

There were a crazy amount of competitors for the sandwich portion of the event that we got to partake in. We had burgers, we had pulled pork banh mis, we had duck meatball sandwiches, we had a duck leg cemita, we had veggie sandwiches, we had an Israeli hot dog with eggplant and cucumber, we had the people's choice winner from Fat Jack's called the Texas Twister with just about every kind of BBQ on it possible, we had pastrami sandwiches, we had meatball sandwiches, just to name a few. It was very interesting to see what all of the chefs could come up with., and amazing to see just how delicious their sandwiches were. There was also all kinds of offerings in terms of drinks and even tastes of distilled liquors. It was my first time at Union Transfer, a space mostly known for being a concert venue, but I thought it laid out for an event like this perfectly. 

Overall I thought the event was really well done, and the chefs did a great job of showcasing their skills by bumping up the usual sandwich game to another level. Listening to the commentary from Scott Shroeder was the funniest part of the evening. I swear the guy could have his own reality TV show. I had a great time and would definitely go back if they do it again this year. Check it out if you can! Cheers!