Foodie Festival

Goofy name, fun festival. The Foodies Festival's FEAST fest was a great time, even if they don't have a website yet. The best description I've been able to find is here. It was a whole lot of fun.

We started off with a winner right out of gate - caramel rum. It'd be good by itself on ice, but we ordered a couple rum sours and strolled around the grounds.

Next up was the spiral potatoes at Twisted Potato, which were great in concept. Spiral cut a potato, batter it, put it on a stick, deep-fry, and sprinkle with seasonings. What could go wrong? Well, for starters, the potatoes were cut too thinly, making them crumble when you tried to take them off the stick. As potato chips, they'd be fabulous. So, either ditch the stick or make the spiral cut a little thicker and you'll have a winner.

The Pin-up Beers booth was out of their redhead, which was disappointing. Across the way, though, something else caught my eye. Eden Brewery of St. Andrews, Scotland was serving up rum, bourbon, and Islay oaked beers. The rum was a bit bright and hoppy for my taste. The bourbon was passable, although the Angel's Share from earlier in the week was better. The Islay oaked beer would give it a run for its money, though. It's very smoky, comparable to the Rauchbier, but without the sourness. It'd be a good companion to a nice cigar. I bought a couple bottles to take home.

We found a salami we liked at Continental Cottage, and the Two Rivers Riesling from the Antipodean Sommelier was very nice. It was drier than we expected, but remarkably refreshing. It's a shame they didn't have any bottles left to sell, because we'd have taken two. The girls at Herbalhaven didn't have any chervil at the moment, but they did know what it was, so that's something. If we were going to stay into next year, we'd be able to order from them online. We also enjoyed the BBQ fois gras beef burger from Randall and Aubin.

We tried the Arancini balls at the Cheeky Italian. They were good, but the mint in the risotto gave them a slightly odd flavor until we tried it with their sweet chilli sauce, at which point the flavors stopped babbling at us and started talking sense.

The real find of the day was SpeckMobile's grilled cheese dumpling. It's a cheese-filled dumpling flattened out on a griddle and grilled to golden brown perfection. It's served on a salad with a nice balsamic vinaigrette and a healthy dollop of sour-cream-and-chive dip. It was so good we were halfway through before I remembered to take a photo.

There were so many other places I wanted to try, but we were both stuffed after just a few hours of walking around and trying to pace ourselves. If I had another day, I'd make a beeline for BunnyChow, and try the empanadas at Chango. There were a plethora of sausage and pulled pork joints, and a couple of cider bars. The music (live and recorded) also did a great job of enhancing the festival feel. It was well worth the price of admission. If we were going to be here next year, I'd definitely go again.