Sights and Bites at the Chinese Food Festival

Over the weekend we made a trip to Chinatown to check out the second annual Chinese Food Festival that we mentioned last week. The central plaza of Chinatown was packed with booths and festival attendees, and the smart ladies wielded parasols to shade themselves from the plentiful, strong sun. It was some ungodly temperature, surely, and this, admittedly, took a bit of the wind out of our festival-going sails.

We cruised the booths that were set up in a sort of circle that wove its way through the walkways around the buildings. One corner offered a stage set up for a cooking demo, and around the bend from there was the mainstage, where a charming host wrangled brave volunteers into doing all sorts of wacky things, and where at other times specialty guest acts strutted their stuff. But we were there for the food, and our entrance pass afforded us two food coupons, and we wanted to spend them wisely. We pooled our resources with our Festival companion, and we sampled first some Kung Pao Chicken Chow Mein from Chow Fun, then some Korean-style BBQ Beef. The beef had fallen prey to the curse of the outdoor summertime festival, which was that it had sat a little long and therefore had toughened up a bit too much, although the sauce was tasty. The chow mein was good, very spicy and not too greasy. All the food vendors were offering some fantastic-looking and sounding fare, but quite frankly we were too hot to eat, so our last two tickets got traded in for some drinks--a taro boba drink for us and a watermelon juice for our pal. It was fun to see so many folks braving the heat and supporting the local businesses in Chinatown, and it was fun to get a little taste of some of the great food that's available there. Next year if the weather's the same, we're definitely going to remember to be as savvy as the locals and bring our parasol!

Check out all of our pictures here.