Monday 23 December 2019

Aurora Winter Festival Food Tour

picture from Maggi Mei
Can you believe the holiday season is almost over?! Fortunately some of the holiday festivities are going to carry over into the New Year. Aurora Winter Festival has made its annual return, but this time they have partnered with Playland. The Aurora Winter Festival will remain open till January 5th, 2020! I got to tag along with my friend Maggi (Maggi is a Vancouver-based foodie & lifestyle blogger: http://vieamaggi.com) for the Aurora Festival media food event. Thank you Maggi for thinking of me and inviting me to be in your video!!! 

I was Maggi's plus 1 for the Aurora Winter Festival, so I decided to be lazy and not bring my camera and simply enjoy my time there. In hindsight, sort of silly of me because now I have no pictures; however, Maggi is an absolute gem and asked me to be in her Youtube video and has given me permission to use it for this post! We got to visit 7 restaurants dishing out delicious eats at this year's Aurora Winter Festival. 

Cannoli King

When I am craving cannoli, Cannoli King is the way to go because they do it best. Exclusive for the Aurora Festival, Cannoli King has created three holiday-inspired flavours: Gingerbread, Cranberry Orange and Egg Nog. The Egg Nog is a custard filling while the other two are a more traditional ricotta cheese. I like sweet, so I was partial to the Cranberry, but the Egg Nog is a close second for its luscious creamy custardy egginess. 

Green Coast Coffee

A warm drink is a MUST when outdoors on a cold winter day. I have poor circulation and low blood pressure, so I get very cold. They have a hot spiced apple cider on offer which is made from 5 different apples. Completely from scratch and as someone who is not particularly fond of apple juice, I really enjoyed Green Coast Coffee's cider. Green Coast Coffee makes their nut mylks from scratch and highlighted their hazelnut mylk which they use to make a hazelnut hot chocolate. Creamy, rich and delicious! 



Cartems Donuts

Do not come for me, but I am more of a Lucky's Doughnut kind of gal, but Cartems, you have finally piqued my interest with the Dulce Honeycomb. A vanilla cake donut with a dulce de leche glaze topped with honeycomb toffee candy. The Dulce Honeycomb is delicious and the addition of the honeycomb toffee really brought a great textural component to the donut as well the toffee has a lovely rich burnt sugar taste that I love. Sadly the Dulce Honeycomb is exclusive to the Aurora Winter Festival, along with the Haskap Berry Shortbread donut which also starts with a vanilla cake donut and comes with a haskap berry compote glaze and shortbread crumble. 

REEL Mac and Cheese 

You can often catch the Reel Mac and Cheese truck at numerous markets and festivals throughout the year and I have been a fan of their ooey-gooey mac and cheese for years. The Grinch is their classic mac & cheese with fresh broccoli but is actually on their regular menu under the name The Green Mile. Funny enough, mac and cheese with broccoli is actually my go-to order. The Bad Santa is something I have not seen on their menu before and is ham and pineapple tidbits topped mac and cheese. Imagine a Hawaiian pizza made into mac and cheese. Delicious! 

Shameless Buns Filipino Food Truck

A lot of my friends have been raving about Shameless Buns Filipino Food Truck, so I had some pretty high hopes for them. They had us sample their Adobo Fries and it was quite underwhelming. The french fries came topped with braised chicken adobo, adobo gravy, garlic calamansi aioli, garlic chips, fresh tomato and green onion. They also did not provide us with eating utensils, so imagine trying to eat pulled chicken with your fingers in the freezing cold. I wish we had the opportunity to try something from their special Aurora Festival like the Spaghetti Filled Lumpia or the Pandan French Toast or even the Longaniza Topped fries. 

Meat & Bread

It is that time of the year again when Meat & Bread drops their Turducken sandwich. At Aurora Winter Festival is a special rendition, the Hot Turkey. Between two pieces of fresh ciabatta bread is a brown butter yam puree, cranberry sauce, winter slaw of purple cabbage, carrot, red and green peppers and kale and of course juicy tender shredded turkey meat. So if you are wanting a hearty meal at Aurora Festival, find the Meat & Bread truck and order yourself the Hot Turkey. 

The Praguery

The final stop on our Aurora Winter Festival tour was The Praguery and their chimney cakes. The chimney cakes are constantly being made fresh with their special chewy dough. You can get it rolled in shredded coconuts or cinnamon sugar or dipped in chocolate. You can have Nutella or lemon curd coated inside it. The chimney cakes are a really great shareable treat that is large in size, enough for four adults. 

At this point, I was extremely cold. The day prior to it had rained a ridiculous amount in Vancouver and the weather network was showing rain again for the day, so I came in head to toe rain gear. Unfortunately, rubber rain boots are terrible at retaining heat and turn into ice blocks and I wore my rain jacket which is not insulated. I was really wishing I was in my warm uggs and down-filled parka because I wanted to stay and explore the light attractions at Aurora Winter Festival, but Vancouver has a moist cold that sinks to your bones. I was miserable, so sadly I needed to leave. 

I cannot speak for the attractions at Aurora Winter Festival, but the space is large and there looked like a lot to see. Aurora Winter Festival is also where the popular tube slide attraction is! Again, I am disappointed I was too cold to stay to check it out. Do not be like me, please dress warm! 

BYES

Disclaimer: Compliments of The Aurora Winter Festival. All opinions and content are original and my own. 

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