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.