Apologies for any upside down or sideway photos. We are working on that problem. I don’t see the photos upside down or sideways. Calling Apple about the problem.

Devoured Culinary Classic is a festival of many of Arizona’s best restaurants, wineries, breweries and local food artisans. It’s a two day event that takes place at The Phoenix Art Museum every year. It’s like the Disney World of Food Festivals in Arizona for foodies..

Your appetite gets wet as they start you off in the reception room before you attend the festival. Some of the food artisans in the reception room were.

Sol Mexican Cocina handing out chicken tostadas.

Zaks Chocolates

Tazzina di Gelato from Tucson AZ.

Gelatine Nation

NutWhats Chocolates

Urban Cookies and Bakeshop

Leoni’s Focaccia

LJ’s Gourmet Popcorn

It’s just about to turn 11:30 and the general admission attendees are about to join the masses of VIPs who pay about twice as much and gain an hour earlier admission and a few other minor perks.

My first stop is at the Barrio Urbano/Cafe.

I thought it was great that Chef Silivia was there getting the crowd all wowed up about her food in Spanish. Her signature guacamole with pomegranate seeds was offered along with chicken mole, duck mole and esquites asados (Mexican Corn).

Province made pork jowl confit

Artisan Crafted American Kitchen and Bar set up a nice spread of Lamb Sausage, Smoked Sweet Potatoes with Horseradish cream and Pork Jowl.

Phoenix Public Market made carrot cake and a lovely wheat berry salad.

Pulled Pork Sandwiches and Butter Cake from Frasher’s Steak House.

Porchetta Piadina from Virtu Honest Craft. These are very porky even the bread is made with pig. They offered an assortment of piadina threw out the day with optional house made hot sauce.

Tongue Pastrami from Citizen Public House

Sumac Cured Hamachi and a Chocolate Dessert that was spicy and too hard for my fork. I had to pick it up to try it. It was tasty but too hard.

This was a piece of Lardo from Quiescence with a sort of apple slaw. It’s a shame my photo of what they called Opera Cake didn’t come out well because it was one of the very BEST Things I tasted from Sunday at Devoured. It was the most demential of flavors and textures of anything I tried in the two days at the festival. It was citrus and hazelnuts and a whole lot more! It was just amazing.

Okra made Tomato Salad garnish with crispy chicken skin.

Lamb Ragot with Gnocchi

and

Nutella Frappe from Cibo

It was a half hour wait in the very bright Arizona Sun for a trip to Japan from Hanna Japanese Eatery. They always serve unique food at Devoured. I wasn’t able to photo the food as I like because I needed two hands here to carry off the food.

They put a lot of work into this …..They made Japanese American Style Sausage Sandwiches, Simple but tasty butterfish, a sort of cold coin purse made of tofu that held noodles and mushrooms, a rice dessert flavored with matcha and raspberry. The most unusual but special egg. It takes a week to make this egg and they start with a special egg called a pullet egg. That means it is the first egg a chicken lays. The egg is soft boiled and served in dashi and hard to find seasonings. I know for most people this was the top dish or one of the top dishes of the festival. My husband picked up the salted cherry blossom water. I tried a small sip and at first I almost choked because it was so salty but it did have an unusual refreshing quality to it. I must be honest because this is the Forking Truth and admit I appreciate all the love and work that went into all these generous offerings but several of the items I tried I would never want to try again. I hard a hard time with almost raw eggs in cold liquid. I also might have enjoyed the tofu purse if it was warm and got fried to a crisp. I like matcha but rice desserts I haven’t developed a love for yet.

Beckett Table served ribs over jambalaya and an asparagus salad with little pieces of brittle in it.

Then it was another half hour wait in the hot strong Arizona Sun but for Kai this time. Kai is special and not just any other restaurant. Kai is AAA FIVE Diamond and Forbs five star restaurant. They are unique and offer a menu that is rich with Native American Culture.

Wild Game Machala, Smoked Trout Rllette served on native cracker and a light mousse-like layered chocolate dessert.

One of the top plates that I tasted was this Beef Tenderloin from Litchfield’s at the Wigwam. It was like butter in my mouth. Everything about it was delicious. The beef was prepared in a Sous Vide at 132 degrees for four hours and then seared.

The steak was served with Beet Vinaigrette, Valdeon Blue and Beet Kimchee.

Elements is the restaurant that has celebrity Chef Beau Mcmillan as executive chef. They served BLT Panna Cottas.

In the middle of the festival for about an hour the general admission attendees were out of water.

We were very thirsty and my husband complained to a few people about it. The nice people from The Larder and The Delta gave us a bottle of water after my husband asked them to spare one. Latter a nice lady from The Palor found us in the crowd and gave us a bottle of water too. Soon after that bottles of water arrived in the bins.

House of Tricks served Scallops topped with Trout Roe and some unusual leaves and beet powder.

Pork Belly from The Larder/The Delta

The Milk Bar served Pirogies, Beet Soup and Cheese Cake.

District American Kitchen and Wine Bar had tasty smoked pastrami sandwiches on pretzel bread and pickled vegetables, Pork Belly and Jam Sandwiches and made to order Strawberry Lime Pops.

The Market Restaurant and Bar offered a bountiful display of House Made Chips with aioli, Chicken, Beef Carpaccio, and something chocolate for dessert.

This was some sort of spinach croissant cracker topped with mushroom mousse from Second Story Liquor Bar. This was surprisingly tasty.

Short Leash Hot Dogs had mostly doughnuts. The Fried Dough on the left side was filled with ham and cheese.

Bitter and Twisted served SPICY Beef Cumin Wontons

I got to Relish at 1:30 and they were out of food.

We came we saw and we Devoured. Believe it not I missed a few tables and I also didn’t try everything I photoed so I missed a few gems. It was easy for me to pick a best dish on Saturday but Sunday is much tougher because majority of the food was equally good. One day latter I’m still thinking about how good the Beef Tenderloin from Litchfield’s really was and I’m also still thinking about how interesting and detailed the Opera Cake was from Quiessence was so maybe those might be my two top picks at this moment.

For me Sunday offered much more in variety than Saturday. I thought Sunday seemed more crowded than Saturday. 2016 Devoured improved and had less bottlenecking in the flow of the crowd than 2015. The live Chef demonstrations stage was dropped this year and made more flow for attendees. It seemed like less California Wines were being poured. Every year Devoured evolves.

That was Devoured 2016.

 

 

Devoured Culinary Classic is an annual two day event that takes place at the Phoenix Art Museum. This is Arizona’s biggest food festival that also includes wine, beer and local food artisans.

Just like most years pork is heavily featured. Lines were short. Water was available and rest rooms were fresh, clean and well maintained.

In the reception room there are several food artisans that welcome you before you actually attend the festival. One was AJ’s Fine Food that made a vegetable and pasta quiche topped with a shrimp. It was very hardy and if you ate it all you wouldn’t be hungry.  Usually AJ’s offers an eye dazzling spread of desserts but this year they donated the take home wine glasses and bottled water to the devoured event and of course offered quiche.

Other reception room offerings included-

Aloha cakes

Heavenly sweets

Fluff it gourmet marshmallows

Cookie Girl Cookies

And More

Now the clock turns to that magic time of 11:30 and the doors open to the general admission and I get to attend the festival. I do note I am not a professional food critic so I can eat what I want. I chose to skip some things and only tried what I thought I might like. I didn’t try everything I photoed so it’s possible I missed some gems.

The Clever Koi was my first stop and I tried their version of teriyaki short rib with daikon kimchi. My piece was marbled with more fat than I can tolerate.  My husband’s piece was less fatty than what I had. I picked the wrong sample for me.

Aioli Gourmet Burgers is a food truck that set up here and made Italian Style Cheese burgers with pancetta and mozzarella cheese. The people there were very pleasant and conversational.

The most stunning plate was the salad from St Frances. This was among my favorites of the day. It just made me happy to look at it and I enjoyed the impossible to find glacier lettuce in the salad. This really was a joy to eat.

The Dhaba offered Tikka Masala, Muttar Paneer and a beverage. The food seemed toned down in flavor from the last time I tried their food but it was still good.

The best of what I tried came from Binkley’s. It didn’t look special but it was perfection. Smooth velvety mushroom soup with a truffle foam. I actually went back to have a second serving of this soup because it was so fantastic.

I skipped over The Vig but it was nice that they made two offerings of crab salad and bacon wrapped chilis.

One of my husband’s favorite bites came from Lon’s at the Hermosa. It was Pork Mangalitsa over sweet corn bread.

Lon’s at the Hermosa also offered salad.

One of my husband’s other favorites was the pork belly tacos from Otro Cafe.

Pork Tostadas from the Sierra Bonita Grill and-

Chicken Tortilla Soup that was rich with tortillas.

Tavern America offered salads topped with duck confit. I didn’t try this one but my husband said the duck meat was on the dry side.

T Cooks offered Pickled Beets with Goat Cheese and-

Bourbon Bacon Cookies

North Italia offered Pork Agnolotti that were generous in size.

Simple but nicely executed bacon wrapped shrimp from the newly opened Desert Rose Steakhouse.

Urban Beans made Deconstructed Tamales. Usually Urban Beans is among my favorites at Devoured but this one wasn’t for me.

The soon to open Match at FOUND:RE made Korean Style Short Ribs.

Another one of my husband’s favorites was the Ancho Glazed wild boar belly over polenta.

It was about 85 degrees outside and the Coconut Lemongrass Sorbet from Alto Ristorante really hit the spot. It was the best of the desserts I tried on Saturday.

The Henry offered really thick toast with roasted asparagus decorated with flowers and lots of light but rich sauce. It was pretty but sort of weird. Sorry my photo came out blurry. The henry also offered coconut cream puffs that were tasty.

I was so looking forward to this Chicken from the Phoenix City Grill. I love good chicken and it’s my favorite protein. To me there is nothing more delicious than really flavorful juicy chicken. Then after a bite or two……

IT WAS FORKING RAW!

We showed the cook so he’d know to cook the chicken more.

I thought the Hamachi Crudo from Corduroy was a breath of fresh air after all the heavier offerings.

Cafe Lalibela gave you a postage sized whole meal on a plate.

Windsor gave out Menage Pork.

Cute little Coffee Toffee Drumsticxs from Churn.

Pork Empanadas from Joyride Taco.

Short Rib filled pasta from Federal Pizza.

The food from Bootleggers might have been great but-

They were out of food when we got there at 12:30.

Pat and Waldo’s and Otakumen are twin newly opened restaurants that do Italian Food and Ramen. It was bold that participated in Devoured. I thought some of the execution seemed off.

I thought it was special and nice that O.H.S.O. gave out doggie bags with House Made Dog Biscuits made with beer by product for Dogs. My Dogs devoured the biscuit.

We came and Devoured. Can’t wait for Sunday!