Announcing Coverage of VanaFest 2012!

[Dhragon]

I personally like all the information that the community team is able pass on to us about this upcoming event. And this incessant complaining does nothing more than enforce my disappointment in the people I play this game with. Most events (certainly not all) give attendees some type of swag as a way to say "thank you" for supporting this event. This is no different and it doesn't entitle anyone outside of this event to anything.

[SpankWustler]

I wasn't expecting this much information about the goings-on over there and this coverage of goofy stuff is a pleasant surprise.

Given how weird and frustrating the information about Final Fantasy XI itself that is passed from on high can be sometimes, actually, I'm really glad to have this lighter stuff to read about a bunch of Japanese people eating things.

[Camate]

Continuing in the trend of Goblin-related goodies, our chefs have mastered the secret Goblin techniques for synthesizing chocolate and have re-created the infamous Goblin Chocolate!



It can be assumed that the Goblins were bested in some form of gambling and lost the rights to their exclusive recipe, but that is the nature of the beast, as they say!

The outside is as I am sure you can all guess…chocolate. The inside is a bit more of a mystery! The chocolates are served in a fancy glass with four pieces. Two of them contain sunflower seeds, while the other two have another special ingredient. If you recall, the original recipe calls for a good helping of Cobalt Jellyfish. Though it’s pretty common to eat jellyfish in Japan, they decided to be quite clever and use another ingredient to simulate that jellyfish texture:

Tapioca!

Boba-choco anyone? (Though I believe they will use the smaller tapioca pearls.)

Stay tuned for more food updates! The next one is one of my personal favorite foods…

[Alhanelem]

I don't like tapioca.

[bungiefanNA]

All of these VanaFest-related posts are for all the players around the world (whether attending or not) to see a variety of famous food and drink from Vana’diel come to life. Just because this event is being held in Japan doesn’t mean we should not share these behind-the-scenes type of posts. We hope to give everyone a chance to see the kind of stuff going into the making of these famous dishes, and hope people enjoy it! But even if you don’t, that's okay, too. We would just ask that you not be overly negative to dissuade the enjoyment of others.

Will they be posting recipes or releasing a recipe book book so we can have a chance of tasting these? The look of the food just doesn't really do it for me by itself. That would seem to be the best way to share the experience.

Bein in Alaska, there's never any convention like this I can attend due to the ridiculous cost of air travel, or the time it takes to drive, paired with how short of a time can be taken off from work. It doesn't matter that I'm in the largest city, even bands announcing concerts here tend to cancel them.

[Darkvalkyr]

Love Tapioca <3

[SpankWustler]

Looking at them in that glass with the toothpick, all I can think of is the largest chocolate martini in the universe.

[Economizer]

Will they be posting recipes or releasing a recipe book book so we can have a chance of tasting these? The look of the food just doesn't really do it for me by itself. That would seem to be the best way to share the experience.

Seconded. A complete recipe for each of these would be nice, I'm not a dunce but I can't play by ear or cook by ingredient.

In fact, perhaps someday we could get a whole cookbook, maybe something like "Diet for a Large Vana'Diel" or "The Windurst Cooking-School Cook Book" that could not only include a swath of recipes but also the ingame recipe for comparison.

[Kristal]

Totally true, but the issue it seems to me is that many, like me, are sick of seeing only the chosen few Japanese able to have the fun toys given away at these.

Sure, they're entirely fluff and don't provide an 'advantage', but the F-U-N and there is no way for the rest of us to ever get them. Have conventions, fine, but don't provide give-aways that no on else gets a chance of seeing.

They should make real-life event items like these available via mog bonanza. Statues are nice and all, but nothing compares to turning your party into eggs during a Pil fight ;D

[Camate]

It might be Friday, but in my own personal world it’s taco Tuesday every day of the week!



Shovel down these Windurst Tacos and sharpen your sight! This one shouldn’t be too hard to make for yourselves at home while watching the live stream and I am sure all of you creative players can find ways to kick it up a notch as well. Instead of the hare meat that is required for the recipe in-game, we decided to go with a more mainstream type of meat…chicken.

One interesting thing to note, though the icon for Windurst Tacos seems to make it look like they would be a crunchy, hard shell taco, they are actually soft! Though it probably would have been a bit more convenient as a burrito so people could walk around without worrying about dropping it or succumbing to taco neck syndrome, we decided to keep it as it was in-game to once again bring Vana’diel to life.