My Kat Life

As a bacon and pork belly-lover, I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate Memorial Day Weekend than with BACON AND BEER! There was a LOT of it to go around too — my fellow competition judges and I tasted 20 dishes from 20 food trucks. Huge shout out to food blogger friend Rose (@foodie.dreams) for inviting me to judge the Baconland Festival along with Cindy (@ieatsf) and Moveable Feast for providing the wonderful food baby-inducing opportunity! Make sure to give Moveable Feast a follow on Instagram and/or like their Facebook page to stay up to date on upcoming feasts.

Check out the judges’ profiles on the Moveable Feast blog

My friends and I arrived a couple minutes prior to festival opening at 11am. We parked about a block away and avoided the $6 parking fee at the History Park lot. After we ate all that bacon, I’m glad we had to walk back to the car!

The four of us took a quick walk through festival while there were no lines for beer or food and we got a couple items to whet our appetites – some beer, pulled pork from Smoked Out BBQ, and the bacon spam musubi from It’s All Gravy…mmmmm.

At 12:15pm, I headed over to the judges tent to meet up with my fellow judges and we began our 20-course feast. I’m SO glad we had reinforcements with us to help us finish off the dishes and thank goodness for the two VIP wristbands between myself and my friends — thank you Justin for running back and forth between the judges tent and the beer station to get us refills. The beer was perfect for washing down all the bacon!

Congratulations to the award winners:
The Baconator: The Game Day Truck 
Best Fusion: The Game Day Truck
Most Innovative: Paddy Wagon Sliders
Best of Show: Paddy Wagon Sliders
Most #Insta-Worthy: It’s All Gravy
Best Bang-for-your-Buck: We 2 Sushi
People’s Choice: It’s All Gravy

Some photo highlights of some of our (judges’) favorites are below:
[hover over photos to see the food truck name and/or click a photo to view the full-sized photo gallery]

It’s All Gravy – cheesy bacon tater tots

Paddy Wagon Sliders – beef slider with cheeseskirt

Takoz Mod Mex – pork belly taco

Waffle Amore – peanut butter, chocolate, banana, bacon waffle

Fairycakes – maple bacon cupcake

the judges’ table

Twister – bacon-topped potato tornado

elote by Caliente Muchin Mobile & shrimp tempura and bacon sushi by We 2 Sushi

I Love Cheesesteak – bacon-topped kimchi and beef bao

The Hogfather, Inc – bacon-wrapped panko-breaded hot dog

Rocko’s Ice Cream Tacos – bacon ice cream taco