EAT Vancouver returns for its 12th year

Breakfast might be the most important meal of the day, but you might want consider scaling back the mornings of May 30 and 31 and June 1. That’s when the EAT Vancouver Food + Cooking Festival hits B.C. Place Stadium.

Here’s where you can source and sample items from scores of restaurants, bakeries, wineries, breweries, coffee roasters, chocolate shops, and other producers from Vancouver and around the globe.

Cooking demonstrations by stars chefs are always a huge draw at this foodie extravaganza, now in its 12th year. This year, Rob Feenie, Chuck Hughes, Lynn Crawford, Vikram Vij, and Ned Bell will take to the Food Network Celebrity Stage.  So too will Michael P. Clive, Weber Canada’s “grilling specialist”.

Some of those hot shots will show their competitive side in the Celebrity Chef Throwdown on May 30. Vij, Bell, and Beaucoup Bakery owner Jackie Ellis will have 20 minutes to create a main dish using a secret ingredient given to them minutes in advance. Feenie gets to pick the winner.

Speaking of Feenie, check out some of the items he’s come up with for event that he shared at an EAT Vancouver sneak peek held at Cactus Club Coal Harbour.

Mini, soft blue-corn taco shells form the base for a local spot prawn topped with succulent salmon roe and adorned with avocado cream. Cooked sous-vide for that ultratender texture, citrus-cured steelhead salmon comes with picked cauliflower, shimeji mushrooms, and a dab of oven-dried tomato-and-olive vinaigrette.

He uses pillowy burrata for a beautiful bruschetta with speck, mint, green peas, and finely shaved parmesan on grilled sourdough.

The Parker’s owner and chef Curtis Luk will be on hand, along with CinCin Ristorante & Bar executive chef Andrew Richardson and James Walt, exec chef from Whistler’s Araxi Restaurant.

This year’s Bites, proudly sponsored by the Georgia Straight, features tapas-style selections of regular menu items from local restaurants like Jamaican Pizza Jerk, Gramercy Grill, Pacific Bottleworks Company, Dunn’s Famous Restaurant, Bella Gelateria, and the Glowbal Group (Italian Kitchen, Trattoria, the Fish Shack, Coast, and others).

The World Culinary Travel Expo allows you to learn cooking techniques and traditions from Argentina, China, Mexico, Thailand, and Louisiana.

Other exhibitors include Schokolade Artisan Chocolate, Vancouver Island Brewery, Vancouver Olive Oil Company, Earth’s Own, and Marie’s Guilt Free Bakery. Then there’s a marketplace with hard-to-find foods and kitchen gadgets.

Tickets are $17; kids 12 and under are free. More details are at www.eat-vancouver.com/.