Vancouver Fall Food Festival unites local vendors
The self-guided festival allows locals try a variety of themed baked goods and specialty drinks
The Vancouver Fall Food Festival invites Metro Vancouverites and tourists to visit local eateries, try new foods, support the economy, enrich their knowledge of local cuisine, and have a chance to win prizes.
Organized by Noms Magazine, the self-guided festival is on until Oct. 27 and has 16 participating vendors located in Vancouver, downtown Vancouver, Burnaby, and Richmond. The vendors are serving limited-time fall-themed baked goods and specialty drinks for the festival.
“Big events that are in the city are [usually] one or two days on the weekend,” says Jason Yeh, editor in chief and founder of Noms Magazine.
One of the main advantages of the festival is its long-term duration, which allows visitors to choose a convenient day and time with suitable weather to enjoy offerings from participating vendors.
“Fall is a great season [for the festival] because of the ingredients that are available and the type of creativity people can have with their items,” Yeh says.
The festival also has activities that aim to bring people together and support the participating vendors. There is a passport activity where participants can collect stickers based on the cost of the festival item they purchase and are entered in tiered sweepstakes.
The mission activity allows participants to choose, complete, and share a mission on social media. Completing a mission gives participants a chance to win a prize from the festival’s prize pool. There are seven missions, including “Fall Crawl,” where participants visit at least three vendors, and “New Kid on the Block,” where participants try an item from a new festival vendor.
Some of this year’s vendors include Daan Go Cake Lab in Richmond, where visitors can try artistic cakes with unique shapes and decorations, like pumpkins and apples. Vancouver’s Whisk Matcha Cafe x Level V Bakery, known for its inventive take on traditional treats, is serving onigiri-shaped chestnut cake sandwiches and osmanthus oolong oat mistos among other treats.
PAUL Le Café on Seymour Street is another participating vendor. Visitors can try festive desserts including pumpkin chocolate and apple butter linzer tarts. It is also selling hot apple cider chai and a maple cream top latte.
Yeh says he felt the need to promote Vancouver’s culinary scene after taking a trip to Toronto. There, he spent time interacting with locals and found they were quite knowledgeable about the local food scene — this was not the case for Vancouverites.
“It made me wonder, ‘Why is that the case? Why are we so superficial here in Vancouver?’”
He then realized that Vancouver needed an outlet for locals to explore and learn more about the culinary scene around them, which led him to create Noms Magazine and, later on, the festival.
Noms Magazine also organizes the Vancouver Ice Cream Festival in the summer and the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Food Festival in the spring.
To learn more about the Vancouver Fall Food Festival, visit www.nomsmagazine.com/vancouver-fall-food-festival.
