WOFEX 2007: Stepping Inside the Food Fair
Once again, the Thai importers had a nice collection of booths, with products ranging from fresh fruit and vegetable juices to noodles to spices.
Fried Ice Cream? But where’s the oil? When the Frio Frito booth advertised Real Fried Ice Cream, I had mental images of ice cream surrounded by a crisp batter, much like Omakase’s Tempura Ice Cream. Instead of the deep fried confection, what they had was a steel panel where they poured the ice cream liquid. They let it solidify into thin sheets, then would scrape it off to form large ice cream curls. I’m not sure how it’s made but I’m betting that the steel panel has a flash-freezing mechanism, similar to what they use to make Dipping Dots. Can’t find conclusive info about it, but I really think calling it Fried, with the adverb REAL is a misnomer since fried means cooking in oil. Unless they mean fried as in exhausted but who’d want to eat exhausted ice cream?
I’ve heard of Bottled Balut but I had no idea it had gone the way of canned tuna. Until I saw the bottles, staring me in the face: Balut in brine, afritada-style, caldereta-style. Interesting? Yes! Would I eat it? Pass me the tuna afritada instead, please.
This booth really got my interest. They were selling seed sprouters that can be used at home. Make your own bean sprouts, alfalfa sprouts, snow pea sprouts—anything that sprouts! Unfortunately for me, there was too many people huddled around the booth, so the most I could do was take a snapshot before leaving.
Whether it’s machine-made or handmade, fresh noodles always capture my interest. Of course, it’s more fun to watch the handmade process, but I still found the machine-made kind pretty mesmerizing.
One of the coffee machinery distributors had this big cup on display. Imagine drinking your coffee from that?! I bet you wouldn’t sleep a wink for a month. Unless it was decaf of course.
This display charmed me to bits! Cow-spotted cappuccino makers! I wanted to take them home, but it’s impractical for me to get them. First off, it’s quite expensive. Second, I don’t drink that much coffee when I’m at home. All the coffee guzzling happens at work. When the salesperson found out that I loved cows though, she suggested that I get the mugs instead. I didn’t even know they were for sale! I got a pair of the mug on the left. I have enough spotted mugs and flatware at home so it was easy to choose the one on the left. The unusual shape of the saucer helped win me over too.
The cow mugs were my last purchase so it ended the fair on a happy note. I started with a cow and ended with a cow. Incidentally, the first thing I bought was some Laughing COW cheese 
Was it worth it? Loot-wise, it wasn’t. I went away with fewer bags than I usually do. Or maybe it’s a good thing since I didn’t spend as much as I expected? I felt like there wasn’t as many exhibitors this year, or maybe the goods were pretty homogenous? Few purchases notwithstanding, it was an entertaining event with lots to see. Once I manage to get past the mishaps, I can say that it was a fairly good way to spend the day. I had fun. I had food. I had cows! What could be better than that?
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your day seemed like fun! thanks for the great photos. your pictures took us there too, somehow. congratulations on your cow-finds!
i think the cowprint machine is an ice shaver. just a guess, though.
How did you make a 2-page blog entry?!
Geekiness aside, I tried that fried ice cream thing once and I was terribly disappointed. As you said, I was expecting it to be FRIED. It’s just a diffrently shaped ice cream. And the flavors were nothing special either. Bleah.
@gita
Glad you enjoyed it. And yes, I was ecstatic about the cows, heehee.
@Tony Lou
Hey, that’s a good guess! Now that you mentioned it, I can see where you can put the ice. And the shaver blade. Plus cows = milk = ice cream = shaved ice! I think you’re probably right.
@nina
Plug-in powah!
Angsuman’s Multi-Page Plug-in. It was a quick install, managed to do so under 5 minutes. Perfect solution to last night’s, “Hey, this post is too long…”
And about the Fried Ice Cream, it’s weird no? Fried means fried! Not blast-frozen. Ang irony pa, it says REAL. What’s real? The fried part or the ice cream part? It’s disappointing though that you found it nothing special. I won’t be quick to dismiss it if even if it’s not fried-like, it’s good ice cream, but if it’s nothing special—
isn’t there really a recipe for fried ice cream? like you put it in a bun, cover it with bread crumbs and then dee-fry it in oil. or something like that. i do know that the chinese have a recipe for fried ice cream. but yeah, i don’t think it would be fair to call it fried ice cream if you blast froze it. i guess, it’s all about the marketing.
Yes, there is. I once had REAL (haha) fried ice cream in a German restaurant - didn’t expect something extraordinary like that there, but then… I couldn’t resist and had to order it, despite the fact that I was already stuffed. Good choice! It was ordinary vanilla ice cream, coated with some kind of pretty liquid “dough” which had grated coconut in it. It was really fried (don’t know if it was deep-fried or pan-fried, but well.. at least fried :D) and the ice cream inside was melted, except for the core. Delicious! I don’t think, that’s the Chinese recipe for fried ice cream, but nevertheless it was mouth-watering.
That’s a torture device! You should get the organizer’s head (the one who won’t let you in) and shave his brains.
Houuuu~~ That really looked fun.
Was there takoyaki in this expo?
@Tony Lou
There are many versions, yours is one of them. But I think all of them, to be really called fried, needs to be cooked in oil.
@zyna
That’s precisely it! For me, fried ice cream should have a crispy batter and should be hot on the outside with an intact ice creamy core. The one you tried is loads more REAL than the real they claim. (Mmmm…and your description is making my mouth water)
@Drew
Let’s forgive the organizers, they did acknowledge their mistakes. So let’s try it out on someone else, like unscrupulous corrupt politicians 
Ebil person you.
@khursten
Once I got past my pissy-offness yeah, it did turn out fun.
@soloista
Because I just found out last weekend that they have a small booth at SM Molino ^_^;;
Takoyaki in general or takuyaki the franchiser? They didn’t have a booth this time around, but they did during the Mafbex. Do you need their info? Or you just want to eat?
Takoyaki in general. I’m looking for other sources besides Kozui in QC.
Fujimart in QC has frozen takoyaki, you just have to nuke it methinks. I buy mine from New Hatchin Grocery along Kamagong in Makati. They sell it cooked, I just freeze it myself then microwave then the mood hits. On Saturdays, they have an actual Takoyaki booth instore, I hear, but I’ve never chanced upon it. There’s also a local franchise of Takoyaki (Chito’s Takuyaki). There’s a pic at the Mafbex post but I’ve no info about the branches other than the one at SM Molino. Chito’s reminds me more of okonomiyaki though, since it’s chockful of veggies with little octopus, unfortunately. I eat takoyaki for the tako! Gimme my octopus chunks!
i think that first pic of the torture device looking thing decked in cow is a big ice shaver or a slicer of some sort. actually, it looks likes the table drill we had back at the shop lol
It’s three votes then, so you guys are probably right. My mom’s the third person who told me it was an ice shaver. (Eeeeek, she found my blog!)
SM Molino?
SM Hypermart Molino, in Bacoor, Cavite
It’s at their teeny-tiny food court.
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