Taste of Cincinnati

Today, we tried something a little different. We attended a festival for dinner. With too many choices to count, Taste of Cincinnati surely had something to please everyone in your family.

Our friends, the Bulars, went along with us and we each tried something different and yummy. I had some fresh guacamole and flour tortilla chips from the Cincinnati State Technical & Community College's Culinary School and a Grilled Portobello Mushroom on Croissant w/Roasted Red Pepper Aoli tastefully made by Down Under of Covington, Kentucky.. Keep in mind these are just supposed to be "tastes", and most prices are from $3-5 per item. Drinks tend to be more. But even though the portions were smaller, I still couldn't finish all of the chips.

And Rick's Giant Creme Puff from Busken Bakery was a meal all by itself. His wife, Kim, had some delicious Crab Rangoon from Thai Taste that had been voted one of the event's "Best Appetizers".

Rebekah opted for Claddagh Irish Pub's Irish Nachos. Since she's our nacho girl, this was right up her food preference alley. With Smithwick's Cheddar sauce, bacon and green onions on kettle chips, she was well-pleased. Abbey came away with the most "tastes" though. She's a foodie with gourmet sensibilities, so the Greek "Labneh" from Andy's Mediterranean Grill was good...but the Vanilla Bean Creme Brulee (from Market Street Grille) and the "Best Dessert" winning Vanilla Bourbon Bread Pudding (from Blue Wisp) were definitely worth the $3-4 each to buy them.

Noah and Leah went right for dessert (Bekah had some too!)...choosing Cincy favorite Graeter's Ice Cream. The chunks of chocolate in these are sometimes as big as three bites worth. 

The guy who chose to feed on the oodles of samples only...Dale...feasted on Chiobani Yogurt Tubes, lots of Haribo gummy bears, Triscuits new Brown Rice crackers, Snyder's Bacon Cheddar pretzels, Stevia in the Raw Tea and Lemonade drink, Meijer's Caprese Salad and Strawberry Lemonade, Green Giant's new veggie chips (sort of like a veggie Dorito), and lots of King's Hawaiian Bread. (We all had a lot of these too!)

But I did catch him longingly looking at Rebekah's ice cream!

Speaking of King's Hawaiian Bread, we picked up enough for the Bular's Memorial Day dinner tomorrow also!

We had parked in Newport, so the exercise back and forth over the Ohio River made us feel a little better about all of the samples and foods we'd had. But the kids might have expressed best, the feeling of relief after getting out of the hard press of bodies in the street.

Leah and Rebekah both stated, adamantly, that if they never get into that large of a crowd again...it will be too soon. I came away with some sense of accomplishment though...one more thing we can mark off of our "Cincinnati Bucket List"!