Taste of Cincinnati 2018

It can be hit or miss whether we make it to the Taste of Cincinnati. It always falls on Memorial Day weekend, which we sometimes take advantage of for a weekend out of town. If it so happens that we'll be in town, we are hands down all over the Taste. 

With impending rain in the forecast, we were planning to try for the Taste on Sunday, but as the rain was pushed back in the Saturday forecast until around 4 PM, we decided to head out for lunch at the Taste. 

I made an effort to be well-prepared by highlighting the places I was interested in, but let me tell you how we still ended up walking the length of the Taste several times. We started with the refreshing Sago with coconut milk from Sawasdee Thai Cuisine. I'm not 100% sure what this is, but Google has taught me sago looks like little individual balls of jelly once cooked.  Sago is made from the center of a certain type of palm; the trunk is squeezed and the sap is dried to make a flour, which is then used to make sago pearls.  Beyond the sago and the coconut milk, I am not sure what else was in this dish.

Francisco couldn't resist the Nepali style potato curry from Bridges, but the portion size was huge. [Don't get me started on my rant about how these Taste events need to provide more appropriately taste-sized portions.] I only had a bite or two, because I was saving room for the multitudes of other places I eagerly wanted to try out.  

I missed my opportunity to grab a pic with the Naked Cowboy again this year. I had totally talked myself into it for the next time I passed him, but then I never saw him again.  

The Taste of Findlay Market was high on my list of areas of the Taste I wanted to check out, but we only ended up grabbing some Tweedles Mini Donuts on our first pass.

Heading into Food Truck Alley, we wound up with another donut: a Grilled Glazed Donut topped w/ banana pudding from Wicked Hickory.  I loved the grilled donut, but I found that the pudding had a strong "artificial banana" flavor to it.  

So many sweets, so it was time for a savory to balance things out. We hopped back over to the Taste of Findlay Market and grabbed a Mofongo Bowl from Mashed Roots Latin Kitchen.  We got ours with the mashed yuca, and this ended up looking completely different than what I was expecting. Overall, I enjoyed it; it's pretty mild and tastes healthy.  

We were thinking about calling it quits, but I thought a smoothie from the BanaSun SmoothieBar would really hit the spot first. We tried the Bana Delight with banana, raspberry, and lemon. This definitely tasted fresh without added sugar.  

But then I realized that I'd missed the Black Bean Slider from Sammy's Craft Burgers & Beers, so we walked back to other end to try this.  I was so full, but it was flavorful and totally worth the extra trip.  

And just when we thought we were done, we made one last stop for Pink Lemonade gelato from Buona Terra.  

My only regret was I didn't get to try Texas Joe Tex-Mex, and I was so looking forward to their elotes and vegetarian tacos.  Maybe next year!