Gala Launch of Malaysia International Gourmet Festival (TASTEMIGF 2014)

I'm going to keep this write up as layman as possible. I realized that nowadays, the overly creative naming conventions used are far too sophisticated for my liking. I shall not partake - my readers won't be able to understand. So, I'm attempting to write this in English. Here goes.

The Malaysia International Gourmet Festival (MIGF) is an event that has been held successfully for the past 14 years. It is an annual event meant to introduce the top restaurants in the country, hailed by their respective top chefs, showcasing a specially crafted menu - or what they call, the Festival Menu. The festival menu is typically a 5 to 7 course dinner. (More information on each menu here)

This year's theme is Red Hot Chefs and the list of 28 participating restaurants is included below. I will be taking you for a walk along the food avenue a little later.

To kick start this year's event, I was invited to attend the Gala Launch of MIGF, on the 26th September 2014, held at Sunway Pyramid Convention Center.

Guests of tonight's black-tie event would typically include top influencers from the F&B industry, VIP customers of sponsoring partners and affiliates, local gourmet food entrepreneurs, celebrities, media representatives and of course, food journalists like myself.

Themed TASTEMIGF, this 2 day tasting event, happening from the 27th and 28th September 2014, from 11am to 10pm, is meant to give diners an idea of what to expect in an actual festival menu, at a fraction of the price. Here, you'd get to test out sampling sizes of the menu, in one venue, at Sunway Pyramid Convention Center.

Fret not if you'd miss this 2 day tasting event, the limited time only MIGF Festival Menu will be available from the 1st to 31st October 2014, at all participating restaurants you just saw above.

That evening, I arrived at slightly pass 6pm, lucky to bypass most of the Friday evening peak hour traffic. After registering myself, I decided to walk around the then bustling foyer area, very eager to check out the hype.

The foyer was then packed with hordes of people. I was served with sparkling grape juice - albeit politely refusing a glass of white wine - while enjoying some amuse bouche that was handed over to me by one of the waiters.

I stepped into the International Gourmet Village at the other end of the foyer.

The Gourmet Village is essentially a place where you'd get to sample and purchase homemade gourmet food, run by mainly smaller enterprises. I got to try some of Heartland Food's amazing gourmet sausages and watched a culinary fry-up of some durian delicacy.

By the time I was done, I was clearly famished. Ready as ever to feast on the real deal.

Now, for guests who are attending the 2 day TASTEMIGF event, you would need this - a Gourmet Dollar Booklet. You can pre-purchase online via the MIGF official website or at the venue. For Rm50, you'd get 10 VIP tokens, or 10 X 5 Gourmet Dollars. 

You would then need to exchange these VIP tokens for every gourmet dish sampled, depending on the cost of the dish - okay, too many words, let me show you an example.

On the left, from Charcoal by Saujana Hotel, you would need ONE token in exchange for ONE dish. And on the right, from Marble 8 by Marinis, you would need THREE tokens in exchange for ONE dish. Hence, you are essentially paying RM15 for that one sampling dish. Get it? 

Do note that what I will be sampling tonight consist of premium quality ingredients - wagyu steak, angus porterhouse dry aged, foie gras mousse, salmon with roe, French snails, semifreddo goats cheese, duck rillette. A whole lot of creative fusion cuisine and you know - my favorite foods. 

It was about 7.30pm when we were ushered into the food hall, or in MIGF terms - the Theater of Cuisines. We were all in awe - a band performing on center stage, surrounded by some of the best restaurants in town.

In just 10 minutes, the hall was packed to the brim. Imagine hundreds of hungry patrons cramped into that one tiny hall, eager to snack on those amazing gourmet goodies.

Making my way through the gourmet food streets, I sneaked-peeked at every single station that I walked passed, feeling extremely hungry but also attempting to save my precious gourmet dollars, only for the best. #kiasu

I gave up taking pictures of everything after awhile, I figured I was getting in the way of hungry people trying to get to their food. Taking pictures of bite-sized food, in the dark, was an impossible feat. I decided to go on an eating-only spree instead. This is as good as it gets guys.

Pictures of me and some of my favorite foodie friends taken that evening. Ruth is in all my pictures!

Pancake from FindingFats, Pui Yan from Puiyan, Soo Yin from Foodeverywhere, Ruth from Perutbesi, Yours Truly

Yours Truly, Soo Yin, Isaac from Isaactan, Ruth, Ivy from Foodmsia

Yours Truly, Pamela from Malaysianfoodie, Ruth

Yours Truly, Ruth, Wen Li from lwinlee

Ruth, Yours Truly, Choi Yen from choiyen, Chasingfooddreams

We left at slightly pass 11pm, limping my way to the car with a very sore feet, as expected, but also with an unexpected ringing tone in the ear - the music was just too loud. I was literally screaming my lungs out trying to get a conversation across.

Nevertheless, I think I fared well this year. I managed to sample most of the sampling dishes, making far too many rounds than I thought I would. Didn't quite felt like it though. I think I had loads of fun.

That pretty much sums up my MIGF experience for this year. 

Again, all the MIGF Festival Menus will be available from the 1st to the 31st October 2014 at all participating restaurant.