Columbus Foodie

Guess where I was last night?

If there’s one food event in Columbus that is a “must attend” for me, it’s the Apron Gala. This is the third year in a row I’ve gone/covered it (here’s coverage of #10 and #11, respectively), and I’ve had the date saved ever since they announced it. So it goes without saying that no matter what, I was going to be there.*

So if you’d like a visual tour of what makes the North Market a true Columbus gem, click on through (warning: picture intensive). If you’d just like to see the pictures from last night, watch the slideshow.

The market hasn’t changed too much in the last year. North Market Produce has been replaced by the Greener Grocer, Cajohn’s moved locations, and El Paraiso popped up where Sabor Mexico used to be, but everything else has been stable. And good. To be honest, I think the current mix of vendors suits the market perfectly – there’s a little bit of everything, and I love the variety.

Benevolence had closed for a little while, and reopened again as Expressely Benevolence, which leans more towards sandwiches/salads/soups rather than the baked goods. Oh, the baked goods are still there, just not in the quantity and variety they used to be. They had a few offerings for the night – really tasty cookies, vegan sloppy joes, and a hummus salad.

Kay from North Market Cookware is one of the people I stop by to talk to every time I visit the market. She’s a lovely person, and her shop has just about anything I need when I have to make an obscure recipe that calls for a piece of equipment that I don’t have. I’ve always got her keeping an eye out for new things because I’m quite the gadget hound.

Her contribution for the night were these nifty spatulas.

Daniel from Pure Imagination knows that his fantastic chocolate is my weakness.

For the sake of my waistline, I’ve been trying to cut down on my chocolate consumption, but I couldn’t resist one of the HUGE chocolate covered strawberries he was offering last night. There’s a regular truffle next to it for size comparison.

And also, he had these lovely Chocolate Fantasy Fruit Flights, chock full of dark ganache and fresh fruit. The picture doesn’t do it justice, it was quite stunning to look at in person.

You can always count on Firdous to put out one hell of a spread for the Gala. He provided his always fantastic shish kebabs:

some salad

and the always fantastic hummus.

The new venture across the way from Firdous (and owned by the same person) is El Paraiso, whose yummy burritos rival Chipotles and at about the same price. It has never let me down for a quick lunch when I’m short on time. They offered these chicken fajitas tonight.

The Fish Guys had quite a spread as well – smoked fish on crackers, and I finally got to taste my first freshly shucked raw oyster (tastes just like the ocean – I compared it to getting a mouthful of salt water when swimming at the shore as a kid).

Along with the oysters, they had some really lovely looking shrimp.

North Market Poultry and Game had a selection of wings, which were delicious as always. Unfortunately, by the time I made it around there, they were absolutely decimated and there was just a single lone wing left, so no picture.

Lac Viet gets the prize for prettiest presentation. Doesn’t this tray of spring rolls look lovely?

And, as usual, they were handing out small cups of their always fantastic pho (best cold and hangover cure, ever!).

Bubbles had mimosas again this year. If there’s anything better than their orange juice (freshly sqeezed, yum), it’s their OJ with some champagne in it.

Jeni’s had these mini macaron ice cream sandwiches. I’m not sure what flavor the purple/yellow one is, but it tasted kind of like Fruity Pebbles. That flavor combination rocks! Did you all see the article about Jeni in this month’s Food & Wine? If not, pick it up ASAP – it gives the recipe to a couple of her ice creams, information that is well worth the cost of an issue.

China Market had a great spread as well. In addition to some appetizer egg rolls, they offered their pad thai

and their General Tso’s Chicken:

And Pastaria had food going on as far as the eye could see. From my favorite mixed baby greens salad

to their two types of lasanga (the sugo luso lasagna is pictured below)

 

to the eggplant parmesan

to their chicken marsala

to the bread pudding for dessert, they had a full menu going on. I think they win the prize for most complete offerings (appetizer to desserts).

 

Flavors of India had a nice spread going on, too – offering 4 dishes. Starting with pakora, and then moving on to palak paneer, what I believe is tikka masala, and lamb kebabs.

Mozart’s had a nice spread of petit fours out, which when artfully arranged like this, look quite impressive.

Sarefinos offered two different strombolis. The first one is a veggie one,

and the other one had meats like capacollo, salami and pepperoni in it. Both were delicious.

Nida is the co-owner of both Nida’s Sushi and Best of the Wurst (excuse the quality of the pic, it’s a bit blurry – but as you can see, she’s a beautiful person, inside and out).

Most of her offerings a Nida’s Sushi didn’t photograph well for me, but she had a seaweed salad, this squid salad (pictured below), and a bunch of sushi.

Over at the Best of the Wurst, they started with these delicious sausages, and later on had some of their paninis.

Amy at Omega has started carrying various types of spreads in the past few months. One of her offerings was a selection of her spreads, along with slices of her artisan breads. My favorite by far is the swiss with onions.

For dessert, she had these fairy cakes:

Pam at Pam’s Market Popcorn had hands down, my favorite dish of the evening – Italian Style Stuffed Button Mushrooms (with popcorn as one of the ingredients). These were awesome, so much so that I begged her for the recipe.

Also offered by Pam’s was a Cold Moon Popcorn dip served with some of Omega’s crostini. Fresh tasting, but I couldn’t tell there was popcorn in there.

We can always count of Mike from Curds and Whey to put out a fantastic spread of various cheeses, pates, etc. Not only was the selection varied, but the presentation was beautiful, as always. There were semi hard cheeses, like this cheddar and fontina:

A selection of various cheese spreads:

And then there was one of my favorite cheeses in the world, the Lake Erie Chevre, topped with a spectacular mango-pineapple chutney that I’m dying to get my hands on:

One vendor in the market where I’ve been spending a lot of time/money at lately has been Cajohn’s.

I’m not a chilehead, per se, but you don’t have to be in order to enjoy his products. I’m absolutely addicted to his chili, which was served along side of his creamy smoked sausage-corn chowder.

John goes all out every year for the Apron Gala – this year was no exception. One of his offerings was a brisket taco with a bit of sour cream topped with hot sauce on the side. I wish he had these as a regular offering at Caboom Chili Co., because I’d be ordering these on daily basis.

Also on the menu were these tortilla bites topped with chipotle cheese and raspberry salsa:

Across the way, Jose Madrid salsa had a selection of their salsas set out with cream cheese and crackers, along with some really nifty quesadillas.

Bluescreek had my favorite ham balls again this year (which I found out last night is their ham loaf rolled into balls – great to know so I don’t have to wait until next year for more), which were almost gone by the time I came around. It took all my willpower not to grab more than one.

And also at Bluescreek there was this lamb polish sausage that has excellent flavor and texture. I’m going to make it a priority to pick some up on my next trip to the market.

The Greener Grocer had their candied rosemary walnuts out tonight. I’ve got to say, though, I was surprised that they didn’t lay out some sort of fruit/veggie plate considering the quality ingredients they have in their store. It would have been nice to see some fresh produce, and would have gone a long way toward introducing people to their products. Having said that, I really did enjoy the walnuts.

And last but not least, was Alex and everyone at Heil’s, who put together a feast of sandwiches, cheese and crackers, and their delicious deviled eggs.

Didn’t Mary do a great job putting my basket together? Whoever won it, if you’re reading this, I hope you enjoy the products in the basket as much as I do. Speaking of which, a huge thank you to the hard work and dedication of everyone who put together this event. It’s no small feat. I’m definitely looking forward to next year! As it was, I got to see people I haven’t seen in a while (hi, Lisa!), got to see people I’ve recently met (hi, Haley and Mandy!), and got to meet people I knew online but not in person (hi, Liz, Walker and Anne!).

We’re super lucky to have a resource as great as the North Market in our town, so support it as often as possible in the next year, and make it a priority to attend this event – it’s worth every penny, if not for the food, for the fun and people-watching.

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*In the interest of full disclosure, just a heads up that this year I went on a press pass (thanks again, Mary!) – and I want to stress that this in no way affected my attending and/or coverage of the event – it would have happened anyway.