The city of Garden Grove hosted its first foodie event on Oct. 4: Foods of Garden Grove Live.
Last Friday evening, Garden Grove residents and other SoCal denizens were invited to experience tastes from over 20 local restaurants, including the Michelin award-winning Garlic and Chives. Foods of Garden Grove Live, a free-admission event, offered a variety of tasting pack options available for purchase and a live ‘80s cover band to complement the evening.
Believe it or not, Garden Grove is a bustling city on a Friday night, so prudence saw an early if not on-time arrival at 5:30 p.m. Interactive lawn games – including cornhole and a giant checkers board – greeted attendees at the entrance, and the smell of fresh grass filled the evening air, invoking a last whiff of summer. There was an eye-catching, sparkling selfie booth in the center of the venue and even a gigantic oversized lawn chair to sit on for a touch of whimsy. However, seating overall was limited, with just a few picnic benches and several stand-up tables scattered throughout, unless one favored seating in the amphitheater. Indeed, it was an event well-suited for groups, families and the extroverted.
Notwithstanding, these elements served to encourage intermingling and support the star attraction: the food! Each booth typically had one to two small bite offerings available, sometimes including a beverage as well for one taste ticket. More on the particulars later.
A welcome retreat and respite could be found in the VIP lounge, which in addition to buffet-style sandwiches and cold cuts catered by Jay’s Catering and Ellie’s Table offered uncrowded cushioned seating and even, conveniently, two hand-carved dragon-creature benches for the discerning sitter. The simple yet delicious turkey sandwich on a lightly decorated cheddar cheese roll served as a surprisingly excellent palette cleanser in between the flavor-filled offerings at the tasting booths.
After a respite in the lounge and with a taste or two in hand, guests could meander over to the amphitheater for live music, which blared covers of ‘80s band favorites, including songs by Duran Duran and Madonna. The bands complemented the evening’s energy, which grew increasingly lively and crowded as the night wore on. In fact, the event was so popular that some of the booths ran out of food before 8 p.m.
During a brief chat, Garden Grove Mayor Steve Jones shared his excitement and vision for the event with Culture OC. When asked how the event aligned with his vision for the city, he said, “My primary vision for the city throughout my tenure has been what we refer to as ‘reimagine Garden Grove.’ So it’s been a citywide rebranding campaign, just to try and get people to look at our city, either people who live here or people who live outside of the city within Orange County, to look at Garden Grove in a fresh new light. So, we have done that just by emphasizing all the elements … that would make the city desirable for people to want to live, work and play. And that includes food, art, music and technology and with an underlying sense of kindness and compassion, since we have such a diverse population of people here.”
Indeed, a lot of planning was involved in this event, and it seemed to pay off.
According to two comments overheard from attendees: “This is pretty solid. If they do this again next year, I’ll totally go.”
“I think overall it was a success because they got the community together.”
Ursula Luna-Reynosa, assistant city manager and director of economic development for the city of Garden Grove, shared her thoughts on the event as well.
Culture OC: What inspired the relaunch of the Foods of Garden Grove initiative?
Ursula Luna-Reynosa: This tasting event is actually our inaugural foodie event; we’ve never done this before. But “Foods of Garden Grove” was born out of the pandemic. Restaurateurs were hit so hard when they had to be shut down, so the city of Garden Grove really wanted to help. They created this website called “Foods of Garden Grove.”
We featured the mom-and-pop restaurants we have here in town, posting on social media to remind people places were still open. I’m actually relatively new to Garden Grove; I started a little over a year ago, and I saw this beautiful website and saw that it was not being actively managed, and so we relaunched it and brought on the culinary chief marketing officer to assist the effort … When I got this job, I got a lot of people saying “Garden Grove has amazing food!” and I started eating at the different restaurants here and kept going home and telling my family, “I haven’t gone to one bad restaurant. It’s just so good!” So I felt like it was really this gem.
COC: How does the event celebrate Garden Grove’s diverse culinary landscape?
UL: We’re really proud of the cultural diversity here in Garden Grove. One thing that all human beings have in common is the need for food, and I think that one of the most beautiful ways you can express your culture is through food and how it’s prepared. We have so many different cultures here – Vietnamese, Korean, Hispanic, Middle Eastern, and we have that all beautifully expressed here through restaurants. And it’s authentic. These people often are first generation or immigrants from second and starting to become third generation, sharing family recipes that they’ve brought here. We’re really proud of that, and we think that a sort of cultural fellowship though food is a really important part of the Garden Grove culture. One of the city council’s priorities is celebrating cultural diversity, and economic development is another one of those priorities. So this effort brings both of those two different goals together in an event and program.
PHOTO 1: Dan dan noodles with pork and Szechuan chili sauce from Nova Kitchen and Bar. Photo courtesy of Visit Anaheim. PHOTO 2: Guests enjoyed bites like the squid ink fried rice from Michelin award-winner Garlic and Chives to the backdrop of an ‘80s rock concert. Photo by Lindsay Mack, Culture OC. PHOTO 3: Smoke Queen BBQ, new in town but making its mark. Photo courtesy of Visit Anaheim.
An Anthology of Tastes You May Have Missed:
Amarith Table offered a short rib pasta which regrettably ran out, but sounded enticing. The apple crumble pie was tasty though unfortunately not warm.
Da Vien Coffee had a delightful iced peach green tea served in an adorable mini-foam cup. The tea was refreshing with bright peach notes that didn’t disguise the steeped green tea flavor; a delicate balance to achieve. It was appropriately sweet.
Brodard Chateau offered an exceptional grilled pork spring roll worth the hype. The pork was perfectly warm and accompanied by a delicate crunch of lettuce, cilantro, carrot and cucumber, wrapped up in rice paper and dunked in a warm chef’s special savory sauce. A whimsical garnish of a chive sticking out the end finished off the look. A macaron of choice was included with the taste ticket. The ube macaron had a fluffy buttercream filling that was not outstanding but pleasant and a welcome addition.
Nova Kitchen and Bar’s dan dan noodle with pork was an unexpectedly noteworthy dish. The friendly booth attendant explained that the noodles, garnished with delicate microgreens, were best enjoyed by giving them a stir to incorporate the flavors of the Szechuan chili sauce. The flavor profile was umami with a touch of garlic and spice, and indeed not one to pass up.
Loving Hut served warm “golden rolls” (egg rolls) and chicken nuggets which were good but not particularly notable, and a subtle rose-flavored lemonade which was the winner for this restaurant.
Urthly Vegan Market offered pre-packaged chips, candy and chocolate, which, while they looked appetizing, seemed to be a miss for the evening, as guests preferred to flock to the freshly made items.
Garlic and Chives offered squid ink fried rice topped with garlic and shrimp. The rice was excellent and was studded with tender rings of squid. The shrimp still included its head and was not deveined, which was a bit cumbersome. The Michelin award-winning restaurant was perhaps a little lost in translation given the event logistics, but overall did not disappoint. The garlic flavor was just right and an artful complement to the restaurant’s name, and surely it is poignant touches like these that afforded the restaurant its star.
It was difficult to find out what food was being offered as the night wore on and the lines grew significantly longer. As it turned out, Aum Beer did not actually serve beer, yet the line was lengthy …
Additionally, a big star of the evening looked to be the wagyu fried rice, and unfortunately the resulting line was unfavorably long.
Overall, one would be hard-pressed to find a more delicious way to discover such breadth of authentic cuisine from different cultures in the course of a single evening than such an event. The city of Garden Grove hopes to make this an annual success not only for the city but throughout Southern California, and be recognized as a hotspot for the new and emerging “foodcation”; an overnight stay in a particular area with the intention to eat!
