RI Day 6 - Food Festivals, Family, and Friends
Today started with my cousins and I going to the Phantom Gourmet Food Festival. It was in Boston which is cheating a little, but the food was from all over New England so I felt like I could justify it. It was much crazier than I suspected, with tons of people wearing crazy phantom themed outfits and dancing. All of us felt that we were dressed wrong because the morning was pretty cold, but it got up to the 80's because Boston surprises you like that. We could have accounted for this by checking the weather but then what would we have to complain about?
There were over 70 different vendors, of which I probably tried around 20. Here were my highlights:
Favorite Food: Lobster Sliders from Maguire's Bar and Grill in Easton, MA. Bit sized lobster rolls on good bread with a shocking amount of good lobster meat given the number of people they were trying to feed.
Favorite Soup: Shockingly not a chowder, but the Mushroom Bisque from the Twisted Fork in Cherry Valley, MA. I spilled it all over myself but damned if what I got in my mouth wasn't delicious. The chef even said that he harvested a good amount of the mushrooms personally, which I thought was kinda cool.
Favorite Desert: TIE between the Ice Cream from Daddy's Dairy in Braintree, MA and the cream puffs from Beard Papa in Boston (weirdly paternal theme to these desserts). As much as I hate the name Daddy's Dairy, their coconut almond joy ice cream was the best of ice cream I had from any of the stands, and the cream puffs from Beard Papa were actually a favorite going in and my mind has not changed, it's a great little place in Chinatown that I highly recommend.
Favorite Drink: Stubborn Soda Black Cherry Soda. They're owned by Pepsi so I have no idea where they are based out, but it was just a really nicely flavored beverage
Favorite All Around Vendor: Double Chin from Boston (I swear the rest of New England was represented but I guess I may have biases) Double chin offered two great options for food, dumplings and fried rice, as well as bubble tea. This was more than any other vendor was giving away, which would have set them apart even if it hadn't all been delicious, which it was.
Another cool thing about the festival is that the new Cheeky Monkey Brewery was open to the public. The beer wasn't free like the food, and it was packed with people making service a little difficult, but the beer was quite good (I had a blood orange lager) and the space was really cool. There were pool tables, shuffleboard and ping pong, making it a pretty fun place to just hang out.
The best part for me was definitely becoming an official ghostbuster:
And the worst part was probably listening to a live band of all white people playing a really bad attempt at contemporary R&B, including a rap interlude. In general, it was cool that there was free live music but this was pretty painful.
After the festival, I went back to Providence to meet my friend, Olivia, at Ken's Ramen. She surprised me with her boyfriend, Gus, who also did improv with us, but had been traveling earlier in the week. It was great seeing both of them, and Ken's Ramen was great. I was disgustingly stuffed from the food festival, so I just got a small rice bowl as opposed to a whole ramen, but Gus vouched for the ramen quality. The rice was also delicious. I got the dirty rice (because of the name) and it came with salmon roe and seaweed, which made it stand out as more than just a side dish. I also got a fancy sake (Dassai 50), which I haven't had much of before, but I really liked that as well. Gus's drink was a spiked Arnold Palmer, but with green tea instead of the more standard black, and it was also a damn fine beverage.
I had planned on going to the rest of the improv festival, but I was excited to see my friends and tonight happened to also be the night of WaterFire, a Providence tradition, so I felt like hanging out with them and going to that still counted as getting something good out of my Rhode Island Night.
Olivia had to go back to a rehearsal though, so Gus and I accidentally got too drunk, went to whole food, and ate a ton of mochi while we waited for her.
WaterFire is a bimonthly tradition where over 80 braziers are floated on the waters of the Woonasquatucket, Moshassuck, and Providence Rivers and lit on fire.
It's a big festival, with street performers, musicians, food vendors, and accepted public drinking. My belly far too full, I participated in neither of the last two items, but it was still nice to see the community of it. Gus got a suagy hot dog (much different than a soggy hot dog) which is a hot dog, but made out of sausage meat. I think it's similar to the kind used by the Olneyville New York System.
After the festival, we went back to Gus and Olivia's place and watched our favorite funny videos and caught up with one another more. This was a surreal highlight:
Favorite Random Sightings: "Say No To Crack"- Auto Glass repair; "Niptuk"- license Plate (actual plastic surgeon or really big fan of the show?); Another licence plate that just said "Sea Shllz"; Mosquito Masters of RI
Regional Observations: Towards the end of summer beginning of Fall, a lot of places, especially seafood restaurants, start to have non-regular hours or close up for the winter, so it helps to call ahead and not trust what google thinks their hours are
Albums Listened To: Confessions, Waves, and the Garden State by Obi Fernandez; Constructs of the State by Leftover Crack; Contra by Vampire Weekend (just Horchata), The Copacetics by the Copacetics (great RI band); The Coroner's Gambit by The Mountain Goats (just Baboon); Cosmo's Factory by Creedence Clearwater Revival (great album); Countdown to Ecstasy by Steely Dan
Favorite Jokes:
A man walks into a bar and sees a plaque on the wall that says, "Bar Challenge". He asks the bartender what that is. "There's three parts. First you have to drink an entire bottle of tequila. Then you have to go out back in the alley and see this vicious guard dog with bad tooth and pull it out. Lastly, you have to go upstairs and have sex with the prostitute who works above the bar until she says you're the best she's ever been with. If you can do all three, your name goes on the plaque. Nobody's ever been able to do it". "That's ridiculous," the man says and orders a beer. After a few drinks though, he decides he wants to go for it. He drinks the entire bottle of tequila, and runs outside. There's a series of horrible noises, and then silence, and everyone in the bar fears that the dog has killed the man. Suddenly the man bursts back into the bar, covered in scratches andbleeding profusely, and yells, "Okay now where's that prostitute with the bad tooth?!"
How many babies does it take to paint a wall? Depends on how hard you throw 'em
A pedophile and a boy are walking into the woods. The boy says "These woods sure are scary" The pedophile replies, "Just think how I feel. I have to walk home alone"
(kind of a dark batch today haha)
Song of the Day:
RIP Walter Becker
