I went to the Taste of Cincinnati for the first time in likely six or eight years. That prior experience was with my ex-girlfriend and her daughter, so, this was the first time going as an adult by myself. I specify “adult” because according to my parents, they took us to the Taste of Cincinnati often as children. I have no recollection of this (my memories are more so of the flea market and funnel cake experience of Traders World). While the weather has been rather dreadful this Memorial Day weekend, there were two reasons I still went on Sunday: 1.) sometimes I have to force myself out of my homebody inclination and go do things I know I’ll enjoy having done, so, I bought the parking garage ticket the night before to lock myself in; and 2.) rain likely means less people than usual, and I’m always down for it being less peopley. Also, compared to the last time I went as an adult when it was a scorcher and I was profusely dripping sweat, I’ll take overcast and some rain! (I ended up playing myself on the parking garage, though, because when I arrived, there were cones blocking the entrance indicating it was full! What the heck.) And ya know, I’ve long endeavored to do more in my own city of Cincinnati. We have a lot of cool culinary, arts, music, theater, and so forth going on that I just rarely do because of that aforementioned homebodiness.
Speaking of my city, a fun fact I didn’t know before I started this blog post: the Taste of Cincinnati is the longest running culinary festival in the United States. It started in 1979, with about 5,000 attendees. These days, it usually hits about 188,874 people daily, resulting in about 566,662 attendees in 2023. Anything that brings people positively together giddily enjoying food and drinks that run the gamut from regional U.S. fare to European, Asian, African, and Latin American food, is a good thing to me. I should also mention that there are various musical offerings across the four blocks of food and drinks vendors as well, along with a handful of miscellaneous booths for crafts and such.
Before I dive into what I tried, here’s an important bit of context. First, I’m pescetarian, so I don’t eat meat beyond seafood, but I don’t think that limited my options at the Taste of Cincinnati. For starters, the drinking alone is fun, but there is also a lot of dessert options, as well as other bits of cuisine I can indulge in that isn’t meat-based. Secondly, today was rather momentous for me. I might do a separate blog post about this, so the short version is, I officially reached my lowest weight in more than 20 years, at least since high school. It’s the longest sustained weight loss I’ve ever experienced. That’s the other reason I picked Sunday to indulge the Taste of Cincinnati: to indulge! That is, to take a cheat day! More on the outcome of that in a moment.
Finally, one overall thing I want to say: I would love if the vendors at festivals like the Taste of Cincinnati offered everything in something slightly larger than sample size without being the full-on meal or drink. Samples might be too small, but the full-on meal or drink is also too much to be able to partake in a lot of the different vendors available! I don’t know how the economics of food and drink trucks work and how doing that would work, but it was something I thought about coming out of today.
Okay, the actual final thing: I’m not an influencer, which is my throat-clearing way of saying these are not great food pictures, they do not do the food justice, and I’m not trying to be an influencer!
My first order of business when I arrived at the Taste of Cincinnati was endeavoring to just walk through it all. I didn’t want to kick-start my drinking and eating right away without having at least eyeballed everything available. (In the course of doing so, a rather overbearing vendor selling something that wasn’t food or drinks accosted me for smiling at him as I walked by rather than spinning his wheel. Ope.) Once I did that, I felt like the most befitting drink to start with was what seemed to be one of the two official drinks of the Taste of Cincinnati at one of the Signature Cocktail booths: the Cincy Shirley.
As someone who loves a Shirley Temple, this was a great way to start the day. It was refreshing and sweet.
From there, my eyes immediately caught Pompilio’s Restaurant, which had a delicious-sounding caprese salad on their menu (it had another word in front of “caprese,” but I can’t recall what it was!).
Suffice it to say, I took a moment to stand there and down both the Cincy Shirley and the caprese salad. You can’t go wrong with tomatoes and cheese, folks. But I also sort of regretted it because that cheese probably added to my food coma to come!
From there, I took a sweet turn to Makers Bakers Co., whose workers seemed super proud of their banana pudding. They had me at “banana.” I love anything banana! They do all sorts of baked goods, though, but for the banana pudding, they were also offering it with a drizzle of bourbon caramel.
It was easily the best thing I sampled at the Taste of Cincinnati. Ope, I forgot the spoiler alert! If I wanted to blow the rest of the day, I could have come back around for that dessert multiple times.
Another item I can never pass up — because it’s not in my usual diet and it’s so exciting to come across it — is plantains! I had Afromeals’ plantains.
Afromeals does more than just provide food; you can also take cooking classes with them and learn more about African cooking and its global influence. That sounds fun! And yes, it goes without saying, but I’ll say it: the plantains were divine, and importantly, the most economical item I had at the Taste of Cincinnati! Meaning, for only $5, they gave you quite the portion size as you can see.
I don’t know who is officially behind them, but there were a number of booths for Soft Serve Margaritas. I was too intrigued by what that meant to pass up the opportunity. I selected tequila as my alcohol choice and added the whip cream and sprinkles to the vanilla soft serve.
As you can see, it’s what it sounds like! (I’m easily intrigued apparently!) Admittedly, I could have done without this drink. Not that it was bad or anything, although I’m not sure ice cream really works with a margarita in a texture sense, but it probably started putting me over the edge stomach-intake-wise. I needed to be more economical with my stomach.
At this point in my Taste of Cincinnati journey, I’d had three rather sweet items in a row: the banana pudding with bourbon caramel, the plantains, and the soft serve margarita. And really, four because of the Cincy Shirley. I was craving something salty and in particular, I’m always craving French fries, but I couldn’t find any! Well, I should say, I couldn’t find any French fries by themselves without any meat or additional toppings I didn’t desire. As I was walking along, though, I came across Vandal Vodka Cocktails, which was offering free samples of their cherry limeade, blue raspberry, and citrus charge.
You can’t pass up free samples. Aside from a vary small handful of flavors and items (within my pescetarian context), there’s not much I wouldn’t pass up if it’s being offered for free! These were tasty little samples. I didn’t realize Voodoo Ranger, the beer company, was behind Vandal. I like their beers, so I’m not surprised I liked their canned cocktail beverage. I’ll have to fully try one at some point.
I finally found my French fries! I happened to look over at Fifty West Brewing Company’s booth — admittedly, I was avoiding Fifty West Brewing, the aforementioned Voodoo Ranger, and some of the other beer companies I’ve had before in an effort to try something new, which is why I said “happened to look” — and noticed they had crinkle cut French fries! I totally forgot Fifty West Brewing does food, too, like a lot of brewing companies these days. To tell you I was jazzed about having a bag of French fries is an understatement. I promptly sat myself down to fully enjoy ’em! I enjoyed them so much, I didn’t bother taking the time to take a picture of crinkle cut French fries (I say that in jest because I really didn’t need to give y’all a picture of French fries).
Prior to going to the Taste of Cincinnati, I asked a friend who had just attended what they would recommend. They recommended the Ole Smoky Moonshine booth. That was my next stop after my French fries. I went with the mango “slush” and the peach moonshine.
This was easily the best drink I tried at the Taste of Cincinnati. Enough said.
At this point, I was hitting my upper limit on my “cheat day.” I’m just not used to eating or drinking like this anymore! I was getting full. But I hadn’t had a beer yet, and I thought I could squeeze that in and perhaps another decadent sweet treat (see, how it goes is, I eat something sweet, so then I need something salty, but now I need something sweet, and …). As I mentioned, I endeavored to find a beer from a place I’d never had before. Enter Grainworks Brewing. I went with their My Blue Heaven blueberry ale.
Unfortunately, My Blue Heaven had my stomach working against it; I was at my limit, but I trudged ahead through about three-fourths of it before tapping out (I know, I know). It was damn good, though! I’d love to visit them again and enjoy it properly on a less full stomach. (And they are right in their marketing of this beer: it’s not overdone and not “cloyingly sweet,” so it was perfectly rendered in that regard.)
So much for another bit of sweet decadence. If I had another stomach, I would have loved a cookie or a doughnut or one of those Dutch pancakes I saw, or certainly, the very popular (long line!) MamaBear’s Mac’s mac ‘n’ cheese. There were also a number of different rice dishes I saw, like mango rice and dirty rice, that would have been neat to try. Alas.
Upon returning home, I promptly entered a lovely food coma nap. That feels like the perfect capper to a “cheat day.”
Milam's Musings 