Eid Festival 2019 – Westfield London

Europe’s largest shopping complex, Westfield London, attracted a huge crowd of thousands last weekend for its annual Eid Festival.

People from across the country came together to celebrate and enjoy good food, live cooking shows, shopping stalls and live entertainment.

Given the number of cuisines being showcased, not only was there plenty of choices, but we also spotted a few exciting newcomers that added to the plethora of smells and tastes.

Arguably the most exciting of the new kids on the block was colourful Venezuelan stall, Pabellon, who specialise in slow cooked fast food.

They were serving up Venezuelan rice boxes with three types of topping: slow cooked beef brisket, slow cooked chicken, or black beans as their veggie option.

This was served by founders Karla and Helios, a young Venezuelan couple, with pico de gallo (a salsa), plantain, corn bread, and avacado for an extra quid.

You can catch these guys at Lower Marsh Market in Waterloo and other locations in London and across the country.

Venezuela was also being showcased through street food vendor Dogers who, as the name might suggest, were taking care of any Halal hot dog cravings.

In this case, gourmet sausages no less, which came as two meaty choices – lamb or chicken – along with sausage & fries, and cheesy fries as sides.

Topped with crispy onions, grilled onions, grated cheddar, jalapenos and sauerkraut (a fermented vegetable), there were some serious smells emanating across the mall from this stand.

Started by another couple, Helios and Karla, they too operate at Waterloo’s Lower Marsh Market.

A quick browse of Burger UK’s social media accounts should give the impression that these guys are serious about their burgers.

While they’re new to the street food side of things, they’ve been operating as a restaurant on Regents Park Road for a while now.

These guys had some serious queues too, with a variety of beef, chicken and veggie burgers being dished up.

For desserts, Treatz caught our eye with a huge assortment of cup cakes all beautifully set out across their stall.

Treatz is an up-and-coming dessert franchise which has turned its sites on London with the aim of establishing more branches here.

With branches dotted across the country, it was good to see them expanding their horizons.

Other notable mentions include non-alcoholic beverage company Azanti, who are looking to promote a “Sober Lifestyle” with their exclusive range of premium Halal wines (don’t forget to grab your 10% discount by entering ‘FTL10’ at checkout – minimum £15 spend; valid till 15 August 2019).

And, of course, a Halal food festival wouldn’t be complete without self-proclaimed ‘Great British Halal Chef’, Hamza of HS&Co, who was giving all burger stalls a run for their money.

Band of Burgers continued to enjoy success too, as they always do when they pitch up their tent. With consistently huge crowds, it’s obvious they know what they’re doing.

It’s safe to say that Westfield London’s annual Eid Festival appears to have already established itself as an important calendar date for Halal food festivals.