Images from OC Foodie Fest and Judging the "Best in Show" Food Contest

This years OC Foodie Fest made some amazing gains in improving the overall festival experience and ensuring easy access to the food trucks. With that said, the event was still poorly managed. There was plenty of water stations, although with high prices. There was sufficient entertainment, and the lines for the food trucks were in control (except for the celebrity trucks). If you saw me there, I was wearing the full body pig costume and served as a judge for the “Best in Show” contest. This was a bad event for food truck owners, as some barely made $20’s that day, while others made thousands of dollars.

This OC Foodie Fest Contest contest pitted all the food trucks against each other to determine who had the best dish of the festival. The dishes were rated on presentation, taste and originality (if you remember the movie Porky’s you might find the humor in this rating scale). When I was handed a scoring sheet, my eyes opened wide when I saw that there was 70 trucks in the competition! The first few dishes were awesome and I ate most of them; although, the dishes kept coming and I couldn’t keep up.

Each of the truck owners personally presented their dishes and lovingly explained the ingredients and cooking process. By my 15th dish, I was starting to feel the side effects of overeating. My co-judges were also starting to look a green and gave me that “I wish I didn’t eat too much of the early dishes” look. Although we all took our responsibilities seriously and put our personal pain aside to give each of the food trucks the respect and careful culinary examination their dishes deserved. By the end, we all felt like we went through a gastromic bonding experience.

A couple standouts from the OC Foodie Fest competition include the Panifiti Truck for a really awesome tri-tip panini, Dogzilla for a creative spicy kilbasa, Bacon Mania for their bacon balls and Sea Birds for their deep fried avacado tacos. All the trucks did a great job, so many thanks for the food truck owners for the great dishes!