Recap: 1st Annual LA Sriracha Festival 

As you may recall (or maybe you saw it in the new Sriracha documentary), I co-hosted the 1st Annual LA Sriracha Festival back in October with my good friend Josh Lurie from FoodGPS.com.

Josh was kind enough to put together a great slideshow from the event with pics from our good friend Bernie Wire, and I invite you to check it out! (There are photos on both pages!)

It was an incredible experience, and we’ll absolutely be doing it again in 2014… and expanding it to other cities! While I loved it all, my favorite part was knowing that a portion of all proceeds was going to Food Forward, a North Hollywood-based charity whose mission is to rescue and donate fresh local produce that would otherwise go to waste. Over 1.7 million pounds of food has been gleaned since 2009, and given to local food pantries, helping feed over 40,000 hungry Southern Californians each month. Presenting them with a check for $2,500 felt amazing!

A HUGE thanks to our sponsors: Huy Fong Foods, ShopHouse Southeast Asian Kitchen, Shellback Rum, TRU Organic Gin, Ten Speed Press, and Uber.

Besides having a great time meeting so many fellow Sriracha addicts, it was also really cool getting to try all the wonderful creations that our talented collection of chefs were cranking out! 

Tons of thanks to all of them:

• Wesley Avila — Guerrilla Tacos — “Best Tacos in LA Under $10”, Time Out LA (2013)
• Nadav Bashan — Bashan — “Most Underrated Restaurant in LA”, Eater
• Neal Fraser — BLD, Fritzi Dog, ICDC, Redbird at Vibiana, The Strand House —Top Chef: Masters (Season 5)
• Gabe Gordon — Beachwood BBQ & Brewing — “Best Brewpub in Southern California”, RateBeer.com (2013)
• Eric Greenspan — The Foundry on Melrose, Greenspan’s Grilled Cheese, The Roof on Wilshire — Iron Chef: America, The Next Iron Chef
• Tai Kim — Scoops — ”10 Best Ice Cream & Gelato Shops” (#8), LA Weekly (2011)
• Esdras Ochoa & Javier Fregoso — Mexicali Taco & Co. — “The Best Tacos in Los Angeles”, laist (2013)
• Christian Page — Short Order — “5 Reasons to Get Out and Explore LA”, Bon Appetit (2012)
• Tui Sungkamee & Jazz Singsanong — Jitlada — Jonathan Gold’s 101 Best Restaurants (#9), LA Weekly’s 99 Essential Restaurants (2013)
• Chloe Tran & John Vu Cao — East Borough — “One Perfect Day in Costa Mesa,” Sunset Magazine, opening restaurant in Culver City
• Ernesto Uchimura —Plan Check Kitchen + Bar — “Chef of the Year”, Los Angeles Magazine (2012) 

What good is food—especially spicy food—without something nice to wash it down with? To drink, we had Eagle Rock Brewery, Beachwood BBQ & Brewing, and Firestone Walker Brewing Co. pouring craft beers and inventive bartenders Josh Goldman (Soigné Group) and Matthew Biancaniello serving creative Sriracha-spiked cocktails. Los Angeles Ale Works created an artisan ginger ale (with or without Sriracha!) and Pure Water of Los Angeles provided beyond-green purified water from their water systems.

To all the volunteers, attendees, staff, coordinators, and anybody else that helped make this event a monumental success, THANK YOU. Looking forward to making it even bigger and better this year! Viva la Sriracha!

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Photo slideshow: 1st Annual LA Sriracha Festival [via FoodGPS.com]