Last night, inside an unmarked warehouse deep-set in Fountain Valley's furniture row, a party happened. A party centered around cupcakes.
The Cupcake Showdown OC, an event that seemed to come out of nowhere, brought the crowds, a line out the door, the most people I've ever seen for a Tuesday night event probably because it was free, and included two food trucks, a DJ, fashion, and lots and lots of sugary treats.
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The picture above was taken before the place was mobbed. Before long I couldn't see anything but an impenetrable mesh of bodies. Had it been a weekend, add a few glowsticks and the thing would've easily turned into a rave.
Frysmith, the all-metal food truck, served homemade fries covered in chocolate-accented chili and other things. At the other loading door, The Shrimp Pimp hawked shrimp po boys. Conversation near and around the trucks centered around the upset of the recent Great Food Truck Race finale, and of course, which of the ten cupcake vendors to hit first for dessert.
And of the cupcakes, there were breakfast cupcakes topped with bacon, cupcakes that look like seascapes of Ariel the mermaid's kingdom complete with white chocolate seashells, and cupcakes deeply rooted in chocolate. Some cupcakes were filled with cherry centers, cinnamon apple centers, even peanut butter.
The judges' favorite was Oh Sue Sweet's ube (Filipino purple yam) cupcake studded with macapuno and sprinkled with coconut shavings. The Audience Choice Award was the coconut cream cupcake from California Cupcake Company.
By around 8:30 p.m., all the cupcake vendors were decimated, sold out. Everyone seemed to be on the highest of sugar highs. Heard were pronoucements of “I am so buzzed with sugar right now”, and “Damn, there's a lot of people here”.
For more pictures: CLICK HERE.
Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.