FoodFest: America's Hometown Eats Next Weekend

MEDIA CONTACT:                                                                                                                                                            Jeffrey Ory, ABC, APR 
(504) 458-5866; jeffrey@jeffreyory.com

FoodFest: America's Hometown Eats Next Weekend
Formerly known as New Orleans Road Food Festival;  FoodFest to celebrate America's hometown eats for the fifth year

WHAT:  FoodFest: America's Hometown Eats

FoodFest is a weekend-long celebration of hometown eats focusing on the unforgettable, informal fare found in village cafes and city neighborhoods, shoreline seafood shacks, barbecue parlors, chicken dinner halls, pie palaces, and food trucks.

Cooks from all over the country will migrate to New Orleans to serve their regional specialties throughout the French Market. From Yankee chowder to Tucson tamales and Memphis barbecue to genuine mint juleps, everything is a great American classic, cooked and served by the culinary artists who know how to make it right.

Food Fest began five years ago as the New Orleans Roadfood Festival, spun out of the website Roadfood.com, which was founded in 2000 by Stephen Rushmore and Jane and Michael Stern. Roadfood.com, which has inspired countless other media to follow its path to the nation's edible treasures, remains the premier internet source for discovering authentic regional American food.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS         

Friday, March 22: America's Hometown Sweets Opening Night       
Café Reconcile:                
1631 Oretha C Haley Boulevard
8 - 10 p.m.         
$50 per person (discounted through Café Reconcile)

The first big event at the new Café Reconcile; all proceeds presented to Café Reconcile

Sample, compare, and contrast regional taste in all those things that ring the chimes of a sweet tooth. Included among the goodies will be the city's best pralines and bread pudding, four-star toffee from Colorado, chocolate potato chips from South Dakota, the ultimate turtles from Massachusetts, coffee-cake kringle from Wisconsin, Mexican wedding cookies from Albuquerque, and pies from north, south, east and west. The Blue Plate Award, given to a chef who has made a unique contribution to America's regional food, will be presented to Robert Stehling of Hominy Grill in Charleston, SC.

Saturday, March 23 & Sunday, March 24: FoodFest Street Festival

French Market: 1008 North Peters Street 
Saturday:  11 a.m. - 7 p.m.          
Sunday:  11 a.m. - 6 p.m.             
Free for all

Sample over 50 America's hometown eats from around the country. Restaurants and chefs participating are:

Abbott's Frozen Custard               : Rochester, NY 

Acme Oyster House: New Orleans, LA   

Antoine's Restaurant: New Orleans, LA 

Bayou Barn: Crown Point, LA

Cafe Reconcile: New Orleans, LA              

CC's Streetside Café: New Orleans, LA   

Central BBQ: Memphis, TN         

Chad's Bistro: Metairie, LA          

Dat's Good Food: New Orleans, LA          

Dunbar's Catfish: New Orleans, LA          

Frencheeze grilled cheese: New Orleans, LA      

Gus's Fried Chicken: Memphis, TN

Hominy Grill: Charleston, SC       

Hot Tamale Mama... and More: New Orleans, LA

Lasyone's Meat Pie Restaurant: Natchitoches, LA            

LDR Char Pit: Rochester, NY        

Meltdown Pops: New Orleans, LA           

Oceana Restaurant: New Orleans, LA     

Panzarotti Tarantini Pizzeria, Inc.: Cherry Hill, NJ

Peck's Seafood: New Orleans, LA             

Pier 424 Seafood Market : New Orleans, LA        

Plum St. Snoballs: New Orleans, LA         

Prejean's: Lafayette, LA               

Royal House Restaurant & Oyster Bar: New Orleans, LA

Southeast Louisiana Gumbo: Tangipahoa, Livingston, St. Helena, Washington, East and West Feliciana, Ascension, East and West Baton Rouge and Pointe Coupee parishes                       

The Fry Bar: New Orleans, LA     

Tucson Tamale Company: Tucson, AZ    

Turtle Alley Chocolates: Gloucester & Salem, MA             

WWOZ: New Orleans, LA             

Sunday, March 24: Beignet Eating Contest

French Market: 1008 North Peters Street 

1 - 1:30 p.m.      Free for all

Who will be crowned the World's Beignet Eating Champion? The New Orleans Fire Department will field a team of its top eaters to determine which of them can eat the most beignets in the least amount of time.

INFORMATION:                For more information, visit http://www.nolafoodfest.com/ or call (504) 888-7608.

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