I can never find anybody ever posting thoughts on these types of events, so hopefully a year from now, this can be helpful to somebody.
I attended two events over the weekend. LA’s Best Burgers was Saturday 1-4pm, and All Star BBQ was Sunday 1-4pm. Both were in the same place in Grand Park, and priced at $85 for all you can eat / drink. Overall, the BBQ event was awesome. The burger event was meh.
First the burger event:
L.A.'s BEST BURGERS
Food Bowl is challenging some of the city’s best burger creators to come up with the ultimate burger, one that distinctly represents L.A. Participating restaurants will include HiHo Cheeseburger, Banh Oui, Everson Royce Bar, Hank’s, Bowery, Love Hour and Belcampo Meat Co. All food and drink is included in the price of admission. This event will be hosted by L.A. Times food writer Jenn Harris.
Timothy Hollingsworth was there, repping Otium
Chicken burger
Grass fed wagyu, apparently. I couldn’t tell.
Banh oui burger won the judge’s choice award.
Dessert by milk bar:
I wouldn’t do this burger event again. Other than Otium’s burger being quite novel with its use of eel bbq sauce, nothing really stood out to me. I’d have been happier eating a single umami burger and fries. I guess I don’t really want an all burger event. It’s like going to a tasting menu and getting 10 courses of burger. I’m sick of eating burgers for a while right now…
ALL-STAR BBQ
With the help of chef and barbecue guru Adam Perry Lang, Food Bowl has assembled a fearsome lineup of BBQ and grilling talent from around the city and the country. For one glorious afternoon, Los Angeles will be the center of the barbecue universe as we welcome the following grill jockeys to Grand Park:
Burt Bakman (Slab BBQ & Trudy’s Underground BBQ, California)Musky Bilavarn (Kra Z Kai’s, California) Billy Durney (Hometown Bar-B-Que, New York)
Aaron Franklin (Franklin Barbecue, Texas)
Matt Horn (Horn Barbecue, California)
Sam Jones (Skylight Inn & Sam Jones BBQ, North Carolina) Adam Perry Lang (APL, California)
Pat Martin (Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint, Tennessee)
Dave Marin (East L.A. Barbecue, California)
Andrew and Michelle Muñoz (Moo’s Craft BBQ, California) Valerie Gordon (Valerie Confections, California)
Aaron Franklin himself. His lines were the longest, at 15-20 minutes at one point. Not too bad vs. the 3 hour waits in Austin TX though.
Extra moist brisket from Franklin’s.
Amazing amazing beef ribs from APL
Seriously, this APL beef was so perfectly fatty and marbled.
I’m still dreaming about it right now.
James Beard nominee Sam Jones, visiting us all the way from North Carolina
To be honest, I felt physically unwell after eating that much meat. I ate a lot and loved it. I couldn’t help myself. But, I’d do it all over again. It was amazing. The line-up for this event was orders of magnitude better than the burger event, and the quality of the food showed. It was nice to have some variety in the meats – chicken, pork rib, pulled pork, beef rib, brisket, etc etc. Most lines were short (less than 5 minutes), so it was easy to hit all the stations. Would definitely do this again.
There are probably 50 other food stations, that were outside of the VIP area. We picked up some mango sorbet to wash down the food right before we left.
Wow, nice 
