Sweet Treats for a Sweet Girl at #EatDrinkAbuja

The EatDrinkFestival is an annual food festival proudly organized by the team. An ever-evolving event, the festival is aimed at connecting food vendors and celebrity chefs with aspiring chefs and individuals who simply have a fine taste for food. For most of its existence, the Festival had only been available to the residents of Lagos. Last weekend, however, things took a historical turn with the first ever #EatDrinkFestival hosted in Abuja!

A few members of the team and I made our way to Nigeria’s capital city last weekend. While other team members were choked with organisational duties and the smooth running of festival activities, I was in Abuja for one simple mission; Eat, Drink, Repeat. I did exactly that.

Food festivals are glorious. Being surrounded by pleasant aromas, a myriad of flavours and people who are just excited about food as you are is absolutely uplifting for the spirits. At the festival, 20 food and drink vendors dished out their finest and as always, I picked a thing or two I’d like to write about. I visited as many vendors as I could and now, I will be telling you why I will either find their home addresses or erase them from my memory, Dumbledore style. Over the next couple days I’ll be telling you about my favorite vendors at the Festival.

Buttercream Abuja

Build Your Own Cupcake: Chocolate Cupcake, Maltesers, Caramel Popcorn and a Shot of Baileys

Thoughts

Buttercream Abuja happens to be the first vendor I tried at the festival. While everyone made a beeline to Cocktailville n Chops, I decided to start off sweet. One of the things that drew me to Buttercream’s stand was the giant pink balloon arch. It was so cute!

The owners were especially friendly, offering me a bit of their Nutella Banana Bread as a sample. It was absolutely delicious. That’s a lot coming from me because I would usually never put banana bread in my mouth.

I had the option of having a regular cupcake and building my own personalised treat. I decided to go with the latter. A chocolate cupcake, Maltesers, Caramel popcorn and shot of Baileys later, I was in my happy place.

Biting into the cupcake, I felt like I was biting into a fresh cloud. It was fluffy, moist and its sweetness was thoroughly balanced. The creaminess of the Baileys complimented the taste of the chocolate so well while the Maltesers and Caramel popcorn added a bit of crunch to the smooth, fluffy texture. Overall, this was a win.

Verdict

I absolutely loved them! Between their amazing customer service and the even more amazing cupcake, I can’t decide what got me the most. Would recommend to everyone I’ve ever met.

Yogurberry

Cookies and Cream Yoghurt, Cashews and Cookies (Toppings)

Thoughts

I visited the Yogurberry stand a bit late, so they’d run out of a couple of froyo flavours. Bummer! I feel like the vendor understood my pain because he looked sadder than I was telling me they only had a few flavours left. Of the ones available, the Cookies & Cream caught my fancy so I decided to try that out. For the toppings, I went with cashew nuts and chocolate chip cookies. The game was set.

The yoghurt was a flavour overload! The cashews provided a twist to the sweetness of the yoghurt and cookies. I have a sweet tooth but I don’t particularly fancy overwhelmingly sweet treats. This frozen treat kept its sugar levels friendly. On the matter of texture, the yoghurt was smooth and silky. I really enjoyed eating this.

Verdict

Yogurberry is doing an amazing job with frozen yoghurts. Unfortunately, they don’t have branches in Lagos so I can’t pop in at will.

Waffle Stop

Waffle Pops – Waffles with chocolate and caramel syrup, coconut flakes and crushed Oreos

Thoughts

Taking a walk through the festival, my nose picked up on the most delightful thing and I absolutely had to trace the scent. That’s how I found myself at Waffle Pops. Waffles are a personal favourite so I took no time in ordering.

The vendor at the Waffle Pops stand had to be one of the bubbliest people I’ve ever met. I loved her energy. The base dish was the waffle which could then be topped with an assortment of syrups and candies. I decided to go for chocolate syrup, coconut flakes and crushed Oreos. The bubbly lady was nice enough to drizzle on some extra caramel syrup and that made me pretty happy.

Let me tell you when I bit into this waffle, I caught a glimpse of paradise. It was warm, super soft and fluffy! It’s almost as if the waffle melted in my mouth. I can’t put into words the joy I felt eating this waffle. It was perfect. While making notes on all the things I’d tried, the only reaction I could muster on this was a ‘whoa!’ That’s exactly how I felt. That is still how I feel. I’m still shook!

Verdict

I want to be adopted by the owner of waffle pops and fed waffles everyday in an air-conditioned room while watching Rick and Morty. If my waistline breaks up with me because of these waffles I won’t even be mad. Transitioning from an hour-glass to a blob shouldn’t be too hard. Round is a shape, right?