“I am not a glutton – I am an explorer of food”
~ Erma Bombeck
We plan weekend trips to Austin as often as possible. We always try to have an excuse to visit the city even if it is a quick day trip. The restaurants are always great and we constantly hear good things about the festival, so we added it to our Texas Bucket List! We’ll share our favorite Austin spots in a future post. This was finally the year that we were able to get tickets and attend the Austin Food & Wine festival!
We purchased the “weekender pass” which gave us entrance to the Grand Tasting from 11am – 4pm Saturday and Sunday. Aside from unlimited food & drink, there were also food and beverage seminars, product demonstrations and a dance area throughout the day to provide entertainment for everyone. Overall, we are glad to have gone, however I am not sure we could justify the price tag in future years. We will just have to wait until next year to see how we feel about it…
Pros:
- There is A LOT of wine! Unfortunately it was 90 degrees and full sun therefore wine was not the beverage of choice for us that weekend.
- The food was awesome and the restaurants featured different food tastings on Saturday and Sunday which provided a great variety.
- Can’t beat the setting: Auditorium Shores park in Austin!
- The food & beverage seminars were very informative and fun!
- Ample amount of cold water served and on hand throughout the day.
- Upgraded trailer porta potties – huge upgrade to regular ones + they were air conditioned!
- Whiskey
Cons:
- Most booths ran out of food with 1-1.5 hours left in the day.
- To ensure a seat, you had to wait in line for the beverage seminars a good 45 minutes before start time, thus cutting into eating/drinking at the booths
- It was hot!!! Not sure why they don’t have it in March.
Our favorite food: Carrots….seriously!! Carrots from St. Philip restaurant in Austin. The carrots were poached, then dipped in beef fat and brown and finally rolled in pumpkin granola.
Favorite Beverage in the tasting: Root Beer Cocktail ( the striped straw below) provided by Angostura House.
Make one right now!!
1 1/4 oz Angostura 5 year Rum
3/4 oz Giffard Banana Liqueur
3/4 oz Torani Root Beer Syrup
2 dashes Angostura Aromatic Bitters
3 oz Soda Water
Banana Chip
Favorite seminar: Wine for IPO Millionaires. We sampled over $1800 in wine! The Silver Oak Cabernet was our favorite.
A few other highlights from the weekend:
Until next time Austin…..
