04 May 8 Guidelines for Summer Food Festival Success
If ever you’re a foodie, you likely like hitting up a good food festival when it comes to town. All the different kinds of cuisine, smells, and flavors are enough to drive your taste buds wild. With so many choices before you, the difficult part is really just making a choice what to try, because there’s only so much you can put down before you go too far and feel sick. Whether you’re a veteran or a newbie, listed below are a few tips that may help you navigate the foodtopia that’s awaiting you:
Find out all you can before you get there. If details are available, it will be helpful to know what kinds of food will be offered, pricing, vendor lists, and hours. Additional family activities to attract more people to the grounds?).
If you beat the crowds, you’ll have a better chance of having an idea of whatever that’s there rather than having to examine (and around) tons of people when you’re trying to make up your mind what to eat. And honestly, checking out all the food options before you settle down to make options will help you avoid that moment of buying something, only to see another person’s plate as they pass by and wish that you had gotten what they are eating instead. One other plus for being the early bird? It’s likely that all the food will be fresh, rather than arriving later in the day. Arriving at the beginning implies you’ll be getting the cream of the crop in the stores department.
A few suggestions for knowing what to choose? Initially, don’t be shy to talk to the other festival-goers to see what the most delicious thing they ate was. You’re likely to make a choice you won’t regret when you settle down to eat when you’ve talked to enough people and heard a similar report from several folks. And, you can also take a clue by doing a little bit of booth viewing. Those booths that always have a lot of people lined up waiting are probably so tempting for a reason. Take a clue, and go find out why.
Sometimes the sheer amount of people can be intimidating, and you might want to try several things but don’t want to have to wait forever to eat. If everyone goes and gets something, and then you all get back together and divide things up, you’ll get several things to eat and enjoy, and everyone only had to wait in one line.
Eventually, you might want to think ahead and bring something with you to bring anything home that you weren’t able to finish while you were there. It’s not a negative idea to have your own water bottle along, too, so you can pay your money on what you really want, instead of having some of it absorbed in beverages. And, considering that you’re going to be surrounded by tons of people (which equals germs), you might want to consider having your own pocket-size bottle of hand sanitizer along at the same time.
Each of these little bits is just precursors to what this article is really about. Bottom line? Tons of food vendors, all the in the same place, with tons of options to try? This is EXCITING! Go out there, toss your taste buds a party, and enjoy it while it lasts!