111 West
EVENT
When I say my cousin Chris forced me to eat another pork belly appetizer, I don’t exactly mean that he sat on my chest, forced my jaw open with a car jack, and pushed pig parts down my gullet.
It’s just that I’d circled back at least six times to The Ritz-Carlton booth near the front entrance and I was afraid somebody on its staff was bound to berate me about not leaving something for the rest of the festival’s attendees. I needn’t have worried. Every smiling face behind the booth not only encouraged me to take the spoonful Chris was offering, but to come back for an eighth or ninth bite. And why not? The pork belly was like kissing heaven.
PHOTO BY TOM FOWLER
Pork belly appetizers before the writer ate them all. Luckily, the Ritz-Carlton staff had a few humongous hogs in reserve.
Fortunately for my digestion, my cousin has a gourmet strain of ADHD; only a few seconds later he was dragging me excitedly toward the beer tent … which was sort of brilliant, really. What better than a glass of stout to settle a belly full of pork belly?
Now in its sixth year and produced by Trio Restaurant’s Tony Marchese and his co-producer Dominic Peterson, the event attracted 3,356 hungry gourmands to the three-day event.
PHOTO BY ADRIANNE BONAFEDE
From flatbreads to grilled steak, everything was perfectly and exquisitely prepared.
The culinary extravaganza kicked off with a James Beard luncheon that featured courses by Suzanne Tracht (English Pea Purée), Valerie Gordon (Spring Salad), Cat Cora (Wild Troll Salmon with Meyer Lemon Couscous) and Gale Gand (Almond Ginger Tea Cake). That was just an amuse-bouche compared to the two-day grand tasting that followed featuring the aforementioned chefs, plus the precocious Sean Le of Master Chef Junior, Aarti Sequeira of Food Network’s Aarti Party, Ricardo Zarate, and the Coachella Valley’s own inimitable Turkish sushi master, Engin Onural.
I tasted some great wines, and even bought a few, but my cousin was right about the “Pints and Plates” craft beer garden. Superlative, superior suds. But I didn’t linger. I knew that sooner or later, the Ritz’s booth was going to run low on pork belly.
Photo gallery credits: Neil Husvar, Dre Naylor, Tom Fowler, and Adrianne Bonafede.
