Western Foodservice Expo Concludes
Posted on August 21, 2007 by Gary McCarty
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The annual [tag]Western Foodservice and Hospitality Expo[/tag] rolled into Los Angeles again this weekend and concluded yesterday (August 20, 2007).
I’ve been attending the Western Foodservice Expo for nearly a decade now and at one point was even a cooking contest judge. I’m not sure how I hoodwinked them into that opportunity, but it was fun. (Actually, I don’t think they even have the same contest anymore. Maybe I ruined it.)
The expo is a chance for those in the industry to tout their products and latest innovations. Trans Fat-free cooking oils seemed all the rage. I was half expecting a global warming substitute as well. No doubt someone will have that by next year’s annual resurrection of the show.
As usual, besides sampling the free food, wine, beer and liquors (with the usual uneven results), I spent a lot of time indulging my fascination with kitchen knives and actually ended up buying some, as I often do at these events. The two biggest competitors for restaurant knives, insofar as I could figure out, were both on hand–Forschner and Mercer.
The Mercer guy kept saying how his knives were used in all 180 Cheesecake Factories and in "all" cooking schools. The latter boast seemed a little bit of a stretch. The Forschner people just sort of shrugged off his claim since the company’s Victorinox line of knives was just ranked "best buy" in a Cook’s Illustrated review. The two companies both make extremely lightweight and easy-to-handle knives. I was impressed by both but tended to favor Forschner.
My least favorite experience was sampling some soy-based sausage products that claimed to imitate the flavor of the real thing, but the Andouille substitute I tried was basically inedible. Had I not been surrounded by hundreds of exhbit attendees, I probably would’ve spit it out.
My favorite experience was meeting Korean native and Los Angeles Fashion Institute student [tag]Tammy Hwang[/tag] (pictured), who was staffing a South Korean food importer’s booth and turned me on to some free automated sushi. Now, the sushi was courtesy of a company named Autec, which sells machines to churn out the raw fish products (and is not related to Tammy’s company). The sushi tasted great to me even though it just rolled off the assembly line.
I told Tammy I’d meet her next year at the same event, but it’s highly unlikely she’d be back. By then, she’ll be showing off her stuff on the runways in Milan. I’ll be back, however, looking for the free stuff–and the knives (and Tammy if she’s there).
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