Certified Foodies at the Ultimate Taste Test 6.0 : Part 1

Last Saturday, it was on. We prepared our tummies for the Ultimate Taste Test in Rockwell and we thought a couple of days of eating light will help. But, no. Out of the 55 food suppliers that were there, generously giving us a taste of their best-sellers or new products, we only got to try 38. WEAK you might say, but hey, we did that in 5 hours! We had to go to an event with our media partner so it was quite an achievement for foodies like us. And it was an experience we won’t forget. So, brace yourself for our two-part feature on this ultimate foodie adventure. 😀

First, let us tell you about our experience before we tell you our top picks. We were at Rockwell Tent a couple of minutes past 11am after the doors officially opened. We wanted to get first dibs on what the food suppliers had to offer, but there were already about 20-30 people there. 😀 Here’s our ticket:

We handed out our tickets at the reception area and were tagged. We were then given our own UTT  passports.

The passport had the whole place mapped out for us to find which ones we’d love to try first.

Inside the passport is the official score sheet where you can rate the food and leave comments for each supplier. Listed there are all the dishes the food suppliers were serving that day. But there were some hosts who offered more than what was initially listed. Woot! 🙂

Every time you go to a booth and try what they have to offer, they’ll stamp on your passport to indicate that you’re done with them. We were watching our passports closely because we didn’t want ours to be switched with someone else’s who might have tried something we haven’t yet gone through. Sadly, a fellow blogger experienced that so he missed out on some of the ones we loved.

Anyway, we think everyone else thought the same way we did – come in early so you won’t have to struggle your way into tasting everything. 😀 The place was packed just an hour after we arrived!

Lots of foodies, tons of “Yummmmm” and “Oohhhh that’s good” – something we haven’t experienced since this was our very first food expo. It was truly amazing to be surrounded by people who were there for one common purpose – to discover new food and be surprised by what’s already out there. Another proof that us Pinoys are indeed developing into more mature and adventurous foodies. We LOVE it! 🙂

Now, let us tell you about the ambiance at the Rockwell tent. The whole place was air-conditioned, but after a few hours, it kind of gotten a li’l warm ‘cause of all the people, cooking and re-heating happening all over the place. That didn’t stop us from going around though. We were really determined to try everything! We were in our comfortable shoes and so we only took two breaks from walking around the tent.

We planned on taking photos of everything first so we can focus on the food tasting later, but it was so hard to resist the food hosts when they tell us to already try their products. 😀 And so we dropped that and decided to start tasting everything already.

All the food stalls were set up at the left and right sides of the stage, with 3 rows each of wonderful food you can sink your teeth into.

We decided to go for desserts first. We just love pastries too much that we can be like Lori of Dessert Comes First (she was there, too, but we didn’t get a chance to say hi ‘cause we were all busy tasting everything! And, yes, she went for the desserts first, too!). 😀 We guess that’s why we were too full about halfway through going through all the food suppliers.

The hosts Spanky and Marian were going around, interviewing food suppliers and foodies who were there, asking about their experiences and what they loved so far. We got a few hints here and there as to which ones we should go to next. 😀

Trash cans were at each end of each side of the place. There were also water dispensers around so everyone can get some refreshments and help cleanse their palates as there were not much beverages being offered. Good thing the Instituto Culinario was there to provide Lemonada as refreshments.

Instituto Culinario is a culinary school located in Greenhills. For more info, click here.

 

Almost all the hosts who were there, offering us a taste of their creations, were very accommodating. There were some who initiated conversations, telling us what their products are all about, which we HIGHLY appreciated.

They were gladly answering our questions about their products. It does help when you have that charisma towards people or potential customers. And with that said, we’re giving Nowie of Mochiko a shout-out for his cool idea of taking photos of the foodies coming to his booth to try out his new offering. Now Ken wants his own Polaroid camera!

More about his Cookie Dough Mochi on the second part of our UTT post 🙂

 

Here’s a photo he took of us. How cool is that?! We even made it our author photo for posts we both contributed for the blog. 🙂

We are also giving Paco Magsaysay of Carmen’s Best and Holly’s Milk a special mention for his warmth invitation for us to try their ice cream and milk. He was actually the first one who approached us and it was such a delight to have a taste of their oh-so creamy ice cream to start our Ultimate Taste Test experience.

We both LOVE beautiful presentations of food, may it be a styling for a photo or plating at one of our favorite restaurants, we couldn’t resist being awed by them. So, we’re giving these food suppliers a shout-out too. 🙂

Marla’s Original Muncheez – Marla was there ready to welcome anyone who drops by. 🙂

 

Cupcake Boutique by Klar Joseph
They were so organized and the presentation of their cupcakes was just as delightful and inviting.

Even Cupcake Boutique’s business card was artsy, like it was done by a professional who designs and prints bridal shower invitations, etc. Well, almost all of the pastry shops had artsy displays, cards and brochures. We’ll show you photos of that on our next post. 🙂

Too bad we didn’t have a DSLR yet, so some of our photos don’t do them justice. But, we already purchased one so expect better photos next time. 🙂

By the way, we couldn’t end our UTT experience without meeting the main man behind this amazing foodie adventure – Anton Diaz of Our Awesome Planet.

He even took our photo and it landed on the UTT feature on Business World. Here’s a screenshot of the article. 🙂

Cool, eh? We were only a few minutes into the food tasting so we were still looking all fresh. 😀

All in all, it was truly the ULTIMATE Taste Test. We enjoyed being food critics and rating everything we tasted. And of course, we had a couple of conflicting views. There are some dishes one ranked lower than the other, but hey, that’s the fun part! 🙂

Here’s an after photo of our UTT passports:

We wanted to try everything, but really, we couldn’t without taking a break. We needed to go somewhere so we were just satisfied with the fact that we got to taste and discover really delicious food and gone through 38 food stalls. 🙂

Please, stay tuned for our Ultimate Taste Test Top Picks. We’ll be posting them next! 🙂