Win Tickets to Taste of Abbot Kinney Eating Tour

****CONTEST CLOSED****

I’ll contact the 10 winners on Monday, October 5. Good luck!

With foodie destination restaurants like Joe’s Restaurant, Tasting Kitchen and Gjelina populating Abbot Kinney, Venice is just crying out for a tasting event. Come on, Santa Monica has one, Eagle Rock and Pasadena do and, yes, beautiful Downtown Burbank. Good thing the inaugural Taste of Abbot Kinney kicks off on Sunday, October 11!

It’s $60 to get in on this eating, drinking, walking tour (or there’s a free shuttle provided) of about 16 restaurants on Venice’s coolest boulevard. You’ll chow down on the likes of Rockenwagner’s famous sliders at 3 Square and sip champagne at Elvino and wine from the Otheroom. The Tasting Kitchen will offer pork rilettes on a crostini as well as prosecco and a housemade whiskey punch. And there’s so much more nomminess to be had.

Additional restaurants, like Casa Linda (a new Mexican eatery owned by Hal’s and purported to open today), are anticipated to join in the city’s newest food event so keep your eye on the list of participating restaurants. Jin Patisserie just signed on this weekend! Apparently they’re going to give out a different goody every couple of hours.

FYI, if you’re wondering where everyone’s favorite, Gjelina, is on the list it’s actually not participating in the taste tour but will be giving away a dinner to one lucky ticket buyer.

Taste ticketholders will also get special discounts at Abbot Kinney stores like Urbanic Paper Boutique (my fave for fun events and cool stationary products), Principessa (cute designer clothes) and Grow (local gardening shop). So you can work off all that food with a shopping spree. Yay!

And OK, here it is: the GIVEAWAY. You, my dear crackheads, can try your luck at scoring a pair of tickets to Taste of Abbot Kinney here on my blog thanks to Cecilia of Velocity Creative Marketing who handles the marketing for this event as well as the Abbot Kinney Festival this past weekend. Cecilia was generous enough to give me 10 pairs of tickets, 10!, to give away! So tell your friends, family, co-workers. Maybe they’ll win and take you if you aren’t so lucky here.

To enter to win a pair of Taste tickets ($120 value) you MUST do the following TWO things:

1. Leave a comment below with your email address (so I can contact you if you win) as well as which of the Abbot Kinney restaurants you’re looking forward to trying. There is no right answer.
2. Tweet* this: “I wanna win #TasteofAbbotKinney @TasteofAK tickets! http://bit.ly/rD6o8″

You must live in L.A. to participate. Deadline is Friday, October 2 at 5pm (PST) to submit your comments and tweets and I’ll pick 10 lucky peeps and notify the winners on Monday, October 5. Good luck to you all!

If you don’t win, however, you can still purchase Taste tickets online here. Proceeds from the ticket sales will go to Venice-based Inside Out Community Arts, an award-winning, non-profit that brings arts education to underserved Los Angeles school kids.

EVENT: SUNDAY, OCTOBER 11 from 2 to 7pm

Check in: 920 Abbot Kinney Boulevard
Venice, California 90291 (map)
Twitter: @TasteofAK

* BTW, I stole this Twitter idea from Sarah of The Delicious Life. If you’re gonna steal, steal from the best. Heh.