ABQ NoshFest

We love NoshFest! For me, this is so much more than a food festival! My side of the family is Jewish and my husband's is Catholic so this is my opportunity to share with my husband with culture and deliciousness that I grew up with!First of all, is it any surprise that the longest line was for Sharon's Gourmet to Go? She does such quality stuff and her latkes were spot on! Her physical location is by our house and the smells are always to die for!The green chile and plain mini challah for just $1 each was perfect! And I was so glad to get it for him to try! Challah has always been my comfort food!The biggest hit for us - and it seemed to be the same for a lot of people - was the Israeli lemonade being sold by the teenage group! Delicious and affordable and service with a smile!We spent more than we should have and got a ton of great food in a room full of friendly, fantastic people! Can't wait for next year!

Arriving at 1:30pm was not as crazy as previous reviews mentioned. The food of matzo ball soup, stuffed cabbage, and latkes was good. The pastrami from Mtucci and California was delicious. The Klezmer live music was enjoyable. But we would have liked more lively tunes with the room and ability to dance. A Jewish Festivus without dancing seems more like a shiva. Organisers please let us dance the Hora..:) The lemonade, cupcakes and children's activities were good fun. Bottom line, we all had a nice time. Thanks for reading. Avram

ABQNosh fest was a myriad of flavors both savory & sweet! Adventures to be had today at The Embassy Suites-Albuquerque included Jewish Nosh, raffle giveaways and a lovely Latke & Vodka pairing room. The vodkas consisted of not only organic vodkas but vodkas from across the globe. The Latke creations paired with the vodkas were done up by Chef Chris Pope of Zinc Bar & Grill. The latkes ranged from original, sweet potato (my personal fave!) Gluten-free & vegan along with an array of toppings! All were excellent! The one change I would make in this 1st year festival is a larger venue. I don't believe the JCC anticipated such a massive crowd. They handled the overcrowding with ease & patience!

I had a great time at the ABQ NoshFest, though admittedly spent more time in the Latke & Vodka room than the main festival area. The lines were absurd and there was a lack of organization getting people their tickets and into the event. When we arrived, we were told there were two separate lines: one for advanced tickets holders and one to purchase. Some time while we were in line, both lines turned into helping anyone and the other line was moving at 2-3x the speed of ours. Then, while we were in line, someone was walking by asking if anyone had VIP or Latke/Vodka tickets and whisked is away to the front of the line to get our tickets and enter. So, we skipped some of the waiting I guess but were still in lines for 25-30 minutes for no apparent reason. Next year, signs and clear communication on which line is for what would help alleviate some of the disorder.The main hall was (as you may expect) crowded and they started counting people coming in and out for capacity. There were still hundreds of people in ticket lines, so yet another bottleneck. Many vendors sold out of their samples within the first hour. Not knowing what to expect for turnout of a first time event is a tough call, but hopefully this year will help set better expectations for planning in the future.The Latke and Vodka room was great! Freshly made latke varieties of four different styles, plus all sorts of accompaniments to try with the potato goodness. I really liked the sundried tomato latke and red chili braised beef combo. The vodka samples were at the ready from all over the world. Some samples were just too sharp for sipping for me, but I tried a few that were spot on for my non-vodka connoisseur palate. It wasn't terribly crowded and a fun little escape from the main event. Someone mentioned they might have it as a separate black tie style event in subsequent years.I'd go back for the event again, but do hope the organizers can make some changes for it to go smoother and eliminate the overcrowding issues experienced this year.

This was the first ever NoshFest and it was clearly a learning experience for the organizers. Few notes: - The space was not large enough, people were angrily waiting to get inside after purchasing a ticket because of capacity issues. We were glad we got there early so we avoided this but at one point we left the main hall (there were no bathrooms inside) and they said if we wanted re-entry we had to wait at the back of the line. - Seating was a huge issue with easily 10 people for every seat, which is annoying at an event centered around eating. - The food was good but I wish there had been more options and more home cooking and small businesses instead of big businesses. - The Latke & Vodka tasting needed more cooks to get out enough food and something to mix with the vodka would have been appreciated for those of us who don't like to do straight shots or sip on vodka. Also there was zero seating in the tasting room so you were left standing around. Overall it was very expensive and exhausting and I don't think it was necessarily worth it but if suggestions were taken into account then I would consider going again next year.

First confession: if I didn't have a Jewish boyfriend, I may have never gone to this festival. I never knew about Jewish food but the more I've heard about it and researched it, the more I have wanted to try it! This festival came at the perfect time since we don't really have a lot of Jewish food options in Albuquerque. It was great to have the mayor open the doors to the ballroom and greet everyone. Really got the energy up and made us even more excited to go in. All the vendors did a great job of presenting a Jewish dish. I absolutely loved the green Chile Challah. Sharons Gourmet To Go really knocked it out of the park with about 6 different samples to choose from. I could have eaten 10 Latkes and a gallon of that Matzo Ball soup! Glad we got there right away because the line for Sharons was tripled in length after 2 hours. I liked the concept of purchasing food tickets and getting to choose what we ate but the glutton in me could have easily spent $100 between my boyfriend and I given the chance. There were so many different raffle options and 100.3 The Peak giving out free concert tickets. Overall I had a great time. It was nice to experience a different cultural feel with a New Mexican touch. I hope the years to come bring more vendors, maybe people from the Jewish community, to get more of an authentic feel and education on the community itself.

There are always kinks to be worked out after a first "annual" event. With that understanding though, Nosh Fest was a lot of fun.The lines to enter were a disaster. By the time I got to the front of the line to purchase my tickets I was told no more were being sold and that only people who purchased online tickets would be able to attend. That was incredibly upsetting.However, after the friends I joined were allowed in, they granted me admission.I attended the vodka and latke taste testing. Although, fun and tasty... I don't think I got $60 worth, which is what a ticket cost. The "line chefs" were working really hard to keep up. So fast that I fear some of the latkes weren't cooked thoroughly. But the food when cooked completely was very tasty. There were also plenty of vodka selections.In the other area, there were tons of venders. By the time we made it over there many places had already ran out of food which was only 2 hours after the event even started. But there still was much to choose from.Overall, great event with some minor mishaps. Next year, I hope it's more organized.

Great opportunity to see a different ABQ culture. Tasty treats from a variety of vendors. Reasonable cost to sample some cultural bites.

Logistics are the bane of any festival, much less a food festival, so I'm going to only dock one star for the lines/crowds. Given that this was the "first" annual (and I hope they do make it annual) I'm going to chalk both up to the learning curve of managing large groups of people.Speaking as a Jew, I was pretty thrilled to see a greatest hits of Ashkenazi cuisine. Bringing a goy with me, it was nice to give him a cross section of things that would have turned up in my bubbe's kitchen -- except way tastier, my bubbe was New York Jew who loved her take out. There was kugel, the forgotten stepchild of casseroles, in two incarnations: the classic sweet, done by Whole Foods with apples and cinnamon and surprisingly light (although oddly served with challah rolls, so I can only assume the starch on starch pairing was meant to be either a callback to Jewish holiday dinners or a chance for WF to show off its admittedly pretty decent version); and a savory shredded potato version by Maya Cafe that, while not particularly Jewish, was particularly tasty and might be the way to bring kugel back into my life. There were blintzes with, wait for it, cottage cheese! Exactly the way bubbe used to make them, which is not always the best thing. The sauce and blintz shells were lovely, but next time puree the cottage cheese for texture purposes. I'll hand to to Savoy, which totally nailed the sweet and sour Jewish brisket. Dang, that takes me right back to my best Passovers. Seriously, it was really good sh*t, tender and fatty with a gloriously lacquered crust.Slate Street had the matzo ball soup. Now, before I get into this, I need to preface that there are two schools of thought on matzo balls: floaters and sinkers. I'm a floater fan, and these were depth charges. If you like a dense dumpling, this soup would be your bag. That said, the broth was lovely, the carrots had a nice bite instead of being mushy, and the white meat chicken was unbelievably tender, so overall, still a thumbs up from me.Congregation B'nai Israel covered the parve corner, with pickled herring, whitefish salad, and gefilte. All were good, but the whitefish salad should be sold around town. It made me miss having a real deli in Abq for the first time in a long time.Would that I could remember who made it, but the chopped liver -- the real stuff, with the schmaltz, was an absolutely excellent version, light, smooth, and creamy. It's beginner offal in the best sense of the term. To the people who made the knishes.... Sour cream. You must have sour cream. You can't serve knishes without sour cream. Shame on you for pointing out you had mustard. Mustard is not sour cream.The mandelbrot was, for some reason, anglicized to mandelbread (not sure why since it was a Jew food festival) but was a very good version, dense, crumbly, not too sweet and not rock hard. Well done!I did not get, nor will I comment on, Einsteins being the bagel vendor, other than to say lox should never, ever, ever be served on untoasted bagels. It's uncivilized. For $20, my companion and I were fed handsomely in the main room, and then I slipped off to the VIP vodka/latke salon.To the organizers: do this again. It's a great idea. The four different versions of gourmet latkes with a zillion toppings is super fun, the chef and his staff were personable, and the vodka tastings were awesome. But next time, ten coins for samples instead of 5, so people feel like they got their money's worth. Also, serious points for a few other details:1. Serving alcohol in the main room, once people adjusted to the crowds (read, had a glass of wine or two) they seemed to really mellow out.2. Getting Joan Nathan, THE maven of Jewish cooking, to the Q. I do not get starstruck, but hearing her talk about traditional forms of kugel made my heart flutter a little. 3. Having a TV set up in the corner to play footballs so that all the plus ones who couldn't care less could huddle together. Power move.I often feel a bit lonely given the size of the Jewish community here, but this event really put a smile on my face, and joy in my belly. I really hope it happens again next year.

I thought this was a great, fun event, but the lines to get tickets if you got there close to the event opening, were ridiculous. This is why I only gave the event 3 stars.