Food and drink events seemed to have become a huge thing in recent times. Part of the “Taste” series of events was this year’s Taste of Christmas. The last (and only) Taste event I’ve been to was in the summer of 2008 held in Regent’s Park. By necessity, being winter, Taste of Christmas was being held indoors at the ExCel centre.

I hadn’t planned on attending the Taste of Christmas event it seemed like they were practically giving away free entrance to the event. Both Sandra and I won about six free tickets each even though I’m sure I entered only one competition to win a pair of tickets (and I don’t know how many Sandra entered.) Being old hands at attending these Taste events, ha ha, Sandra and I had already selected which restaurants we wanted to visit. I’d also earmarked the events I wanted to see and the highlight of these had to have been the talk by Heston Blumenthal!

Heston was second cab off the rank and I felt a bit sorry for the Modern Pantry’s Anna Hansen who had the first billing. I would have liked to have sat through her talk as well but they were going to turf the people out to make way for people coming to see Heston which was a good thing because it meant people couldn’t just seat hog in the theatre. We decided early on to line up for Heston which was the best decision because fairly shortly the line to get a seat during his show was massive. We could still see Anna’s show though as the walls were quite low and you could see over it.

Heston’s talk was fabulous. In addition to being quite funny and coming across quite modest he took us through a few of his recipes for items on the menu at his restaurant Fat Duck (http://www.thekua.com/sista/?p=3321) including the innovative Hot and Iced Tea. Very hot. Very cool.

Jun Tanaka was on after Heston and I wanted to see him too however following the turf policy we were kicked out to make room for the next group. But that’s okay, I still got a few photos:

Following the celebrity chef talks Pat, Sandra and I headed to the main event – the eating! Just like other Taste events the prices for food were not cheap so we had to spend our Crowns (the Taste currency) wisely. It was so tasty and surprisingly I got quite full this time!