Fest Review: The 2009 Taste of St. Augustine, Florida

While St. Augustine is well known for being many things, such as America's oldest city, a great beach town, etc., it is less well known for hosting such fests as the annual Taste of St. Augustine. This fest has been going on since 1997, and was hosted this year by Epic Commuity Services, Inc., on April 26^th at the St. Augustine Amphitheatre.

Various restaurants showed up, including A1A Ale Works, Yamato Japanese Steakhouse & Sushi Bar, La Cocina, The Present Moment Café, Asian Thai Place, Zhanra's, Hot Shot Bakery, Woody's Bar-B-Q, The Reef, and many, many more. Almost all of the vendors, except for a few like Starbucks, the Hilton Bayfront, and the Holiday Inn/Beach Garden Inn, were local to the Florida area.

There were also several blues bands playing in the nearby amphitheatre, such as JAIDD w/Mike Hart, Soul Slinkee, J.W. Gilmore & The Blues Authority, Stormy Weather Blues Band, Regi Blue/Al Stone Band, and the Kevin Marcus Dillon Band.

Upon entering the taste area, you had to pay an entrance fee of $4. I suppose that this money was to defray the cost of having the blues bands, but it was the first time I'd ever had to pay an entrance fee to a food fair. Once inside the amphitheatre grounds, my friend and I were instructed to purchase food tickets from the front wall of the amphitheatre. Tickets were $1/each. The food cost between $2-$3/taste, with most tastes being $3.

After loading up on food tickets, we went out to get some food samples. I was immediately attracted to the garlic fries offered by A1A Ale Works, as well as their Fried Custard. Having bought the items, we tried them out. I found the fries well-seasoned with garlic, which topped the potatoes in raw and semi-crushed form. The garlic certainly added a unique zing to the fries. The fried custard was like a wet-form donut that has been deep-fried; not my favorite dessert of all time, but good to try out.

We then spent some tickets on the Red Brick Ale from AIA Ale Works- this beer, it seemed, was uniquely suited to washing down the aforementioned garlic fries. Unfortunately, the beer cost 5 tickets, which depleted our ticket supply considerably.

After obtaining the beer, we visited The Reef, which was offering Zarziela (a Spanish seafood soup). However, all I saw in this soup was shells- clam shells, mussel shells, oyster shells, etc. I did not see much soup. So, we moved on.

What next caught our attention was South Beach Grill, which had Maryland-style Blue Crab cakes with spicy Pigotta pepper remoulade. A single crab cake cost 3 tickets, which I first figured would be a rip-off. However, after biting into the crab cake, I was taken aback by the wonderful crab chunks found inside, and the rather tasty and sparse stuffing mixed throughout. The remoulade finished off the cake nicely, and I soon wanted another.

Unfortunately, about 80% of the food fest still awaited our taste buds. So, we sallied over to Donovan's Irish Pub for their Reuben sandwiches. We figured we'd get at least ½ sandwich each for the 3 tickets being charged. Instead, we received ¼ sandwich each, which was inhaled more than eaten!

We took a breather by watching the blues bands, which played in the amphitheatre stage area. There were plenty of seats available here, and even some picnic tables. After that, we came back for a "dessert" consisting of more garlic fries from AIA Ale Works, Caribbean Jack Seared Ahi Tuna with Apple Mango Slaw from Zhanra's, and Baby Back Ribs from Woody's Bar-B-Q. This was topped with a Mini Chocolate Torte with Raspberry from Raintree Restaurant.

When we had left the Taste and tallied up how much was spent, I found out that we had used up $38 on admission and food tickets. It had been a great fest, but our fullness came mostly from the garlic fries of the A1A Ale Works, and not much else. While this had been one of the more expensive food fests I had attended, it had been worth it to help us discover good (and not so good) restaurants in St. Augustine.

Here is some additional information about the Taste of St. Augustine:
http://www.epiccommunityservices.org/spring09.html