On Sunday, NJ.com debuted its first food festival – Jersey Eats: A Taste of New Jersey. The event was held at 18 Label Studios in Montclair and sold out a few hours prior to the event with over 700 people arriving to try out a variety of foods from 19 vendors.
The fun-filled day consisted of delicious eats, eager foodies, great music, cooking demonstrations from Teglia Pizza Bar, Amoria Tea, Butler and the Board and Cubita Cafe, plus lots of full and happy faces around.
The next event will be at the Jersey Shore on Sunday, Oct. 8 in Asbury Park at The Asbury Hotel. Since our first event sold out, we highly recommend buying tickets prior to the Jersey Shore festival.
Tickets can be purchased online. General admission is $15 and kids under 12 attend for free. Food and beverage will be available to sample, as well as to purchase onsite directly from vendors (cash and credit cards accepted). Food and products will cost between $5 to $25.
Here are the 11 best things we ate at our first food festival:
1. Pandan croissant, made by Vilma featured at Ayala Coffee
Aside from Ayala Coffee’s sip-worthy lattes and beverages inspired by Filipino flavors, they collaborate with several Filipino-owned businesses including Vilma, who’s pandan croissants ($6.99 each) were being featured on the coffee shop’s table at the festival. The flaky croissant was filled with the silkiest pandan (tropical plant that grows in Southeast Asia) cream that had a great balance of sweet and floral.
Casa de Konkan offers authentic Konkan cuisine. The Konkan Coast is a stretch of land in the western coastline of India. The menu highlighted several small plates, bowls and platters including their flavorful and spicy samosas. The crispy, savory pastries were topped with chutneys, sev (an Indian snack consisting of crunchy noodles made from chickpea flour paste) and pomegranate seeds.
3. Smoked oxtail with cheese and truffle egg empanadas, Cubita Cafe
This Nutley-based restaurant – with a food truck coming soon – was selling four different kinds of empanadas. Although they were all tasty, two of them stood out. The smoked oxtail empanada was so tender and oozing with cheese. The truffle egg empanada was like a breakfast empanada with its truffle infused scrambled eggs inside and crust coasted with everything bagel seasoning.
We already knew that everything at The Brisket Guy’s stand was going to be exceptional, especially since they ranked No. 6 on our best BBQ joints list. At the event, they were serving sliders with a choice of either brisket or pulled pork. The meat was soft, smokey and oh-so-juicy.
5. Blue jasmine bubble tea, Amoria Tea
This up-and-coming bubble tea concept does not have a storefront yet, but they should. I loved their blue jasmine drink mixing butterfly pea flower tea and jasmine tea with milk and boba. The cold drink was refreshing, flowery and sweet.
This Ridgewood eatery was offering free samples of their kobe elote hot dogs. The toasted bun was stacked with meat, creamy elote and crisp microgreens. It was so good, I was surprised they were giving these small hot dogs away for free.
7. Truffle chili brothless ramen, Tenmomi Ramen
I usually love broth with my ramen, but this ghost kitchen concept in Nutley executed it beautifully. Pork, egg, greens and some of the best chili oil I’ve ever tasted topped the noodles creating an appetizing flavor sensation that did fine without the broth.
If you see a pizza place at a food festival in New Jersey, you know we’re going to take it seriously. Teglia Pizza Bar laid out several samples of their pizza at the festival and I devoured their sweet heat pizza and came back for seconds. The fluffy rectangle crust layered cured and fresh Italian sausage, fontina and mozzarella cheeses, tomato, basil and Calabrian hot honey. It was protein packed, cheesy and hints of spicy and sweet from hot honey drizzle.
The bread made at Thumb Bread is vegan, hand-formed and small batch made by three sisters since 2007. At the festival, they gave out samples of the bread with various spreads such as Ithaca brand lemon beet hummus and melted cheese. The bread was so light and airy with a gorgeous crusty exterior.
After eating the peanut butter and jelly burger from Holy Grail Burgers, I can see why they chose the name as I would put this burger on a pedestal. The burger sandwiched a charred beef patty, dollops of peanut butter and jelly, bacon and onions. Flavors of salty, tart, nutty and sweet encapsulated this scrumptious sandwich.
11. Saffron gold ice cream, Icecreamology
I visited Icecreamology’s shop in Union a few weeks ago and their Greek flavors never fail to amaze me so I was ecstatic to see them at the festival. I had to get a few scoops of their saffron gold ice cream, made with saffron and rosewater with delicate notes of floral and honey. They were also offering other flavors such as glazed churro and baklava.
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Lauren Musni may be reached at lmusni@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @Laurengmusni. Find NJ.com on Facebook.