Hundreds of dishes from across Asia will fill the San Mateo County Event Center this weekend, with general admission tickets priced at just $3.79 and children seven and under getting in free. The 2026 West Coast Asian Foodie Festival runs Saturday and Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the first day, as part of the larger USA Asian Culture & Food Expo, which fills the venue with food stalls, cultural performances, and a fashion show.
The festival spotlights food from Japan to mainland China to Thailand and beyond, according to The Mercury News. Expect Vietnamese spring rolls and coffee, Hong Kong curry fish balls, egg waffles and rice noodle rolls, and a spread of Sichuan cold skewers, stinky tofu, crawfish rice, roujiamo and liangpi representing mainland Chinese cuisine. Filipino empanadas and lechón, Taiwanese popcorn chicken, rice balls, mochi and milk tea, Japanese takoyaki, ramen and sushi, Thai noodles and mango sticky rice, and Malaysian nasi lemak, chicken rice and curry laksa round out the lineup. VIP admission runs $16.59.
The festival is put together by O.M.G. Entertainment, a San Mateo-based promoter that also organizes the Millbrae Mid-Autumn Festival and the Sunnyvale Mid-Autumn Festival as part of a broader calendar of Bay Area cultural events. Beyond the public food stalls, the broader USA Asian Culture & Food Expo aims to introduce food trends from Asia to American consumers, and this year's edition doubles as a trade platform with brand exhibitors from eight countries, including an official Japanese food and beverage delegation organized by the Japan External Trade Organization, or JETRO.
A Trade Show Hiding Behind the Food Stalls
The expo's 2026 edition also includes an industry seminar program covering go-to-market planning, cross-border logistics, packaging localization, and retail distribution strategies aimed at Asian food exporters trying to break into the U.S. market. Ticket holders get access to an exclusive Expo-Only Tasting Zone, according to DingDing TV, offering early samples of new Asian food products before they hit mainstream U.S. shelves. Interactive brand activations round out the weekend, including a Blind Tea Aroma Challenge hosted by Taiwanese tea brand Chi Cha San Chen and lava mooncake gift drawings from Hong Kong's MX Mooncakes.
The event isn't new to the venue. The combined expo and foodie festival previously took place at the San Mateo County Event Center on August 16 and 17, 2025, cementing its status as an annual mid-August fixture there. The venue itself is built for this scale of gathering: its 48 acres include up to 195,000 square feet of indoor exhibit space and 3,600 parking spaces, making it the only Peninsula venue with more than 100,000 square feet of exhibit space.
Why San Mateo County Is Prime Territory for This Format
The demographics help explain the demand. Non-Hispanic Asian residents make up roughly 33.4% of San Mateo County's population, or about 247,800 people, according to 2024 U.S. Census Bureau estimates cited by USAFacts, making them the county's largest single racial demographic group. That local base has fed a broader wave of Asian food retail expansion across the Peninsula, including Canadian grocery chain T&T Supermarket's approval to open a 52,000-square-foot storefront in neighboring Millbrae, a hybrid grocery and prepared street-food market that Hoodline has also reported adds jobs and diverse food staples to the area.
Attendees driving to the event should plan for a separate cost at the gate: parking at the San Mateo County Event Center is $20 per vehicle, or $18 with a credit card at select gates, under a venue-wide rate update that took effect May 1. There is no in-and-out privilege once a vehicle parks. The festival's low ticket price and family-friendly activities are designed to draw large weekend crowds to the Saratoga Drive entrance, a pattern already seen this month at the venue's 31st annual Aloha Festival, which also drew thousands over a multi-day run.
