Asian food festival!

So there are few things I heart more then food festivals. Got the chance to attend Richmond’s Asian American Festival this past weekend, and it was delightful indeed. Most food festivals tend to focus on a particular country (for instance the local Lebanese food festival is absolutely fabulous). However, the Asian festival focuses on an entire region of the world, meaning there were food stands for 15 or so countries there. And I was forlorn for not getting the chance to gnaw on something from every single table. Alas.

So I took pictures of the few things I ate that were a.) photogenic and that b.) I actually remembered to photograph. See, I was mesmerized by this gigantic inflatable lobster that sat atop a moon walk, such things make it difficult for one to remember one’s camera-ey duties!

This is a soup from Bangladesh called chat pati, and was quite tasty. The ingredients are: chickpeas, potato, egg, cilantro, onion, tomato, cucumber, green chili pepper, and tamarind juice. And this indeed contained all of those, it started as mostly just the chickpeas with the option of sprinkling other things on top, and of course I got everything. Mind you, afterwards I picked out the chili peppers, as a.) my mouth has a difficult time dealing with Death, and b.) the cha (chai?) tea I was drinking was still entirely too hot to function as a decent means to cool one’s mouth from spices. I would love to make this sometime.

This is a Filipino dessert…of some sort. A cross between a pudding and a cake, it seemed. I would be able to tell you the name, but the handy dandy booklet I got upon entering the festival that lists all of the countries, their foods, plus ingredients in each, sadly fails to mention it. It’s spongy and yellow and delightful, seemed like it had coconut milk in it, definitely had shredded coconut on top, and, as a bonus, I totally discovered bits of corn in it. According to Google, it might be maja mais? Not sure. One thing I learned from my Google search is that I apparently need to try more Filipino dessert products, so much glutinousness!