Couldn't Make Taste of Tucson or You Wanna Relive All of the Fun? We Got You Covered...

We didn't go to last year's Taste of Tucson because, if memory serves us, it was raining pretty hard. Sure that hasn't kept us from eating (almost) free vittles in the past, but that particular day was like sheets of heavy late summer drops falling in droves. Taste of Tucson is an open air event and we didn't want our sliders and samples of pizza and pasta to get soggy so we skipped out, found a dark bar and waited for the weather to get sunny.

It didn't.

Thankfully.

You couldn't ask for a more beautiful day

This year though? Oh man, the day was like out of a tourist brochure for visiting Tucson. Hardly any clouds, temps in the low '80s, a light breeze, people waving to their neighbors, the beer flowed like wine, dogs and cats living together...wait. But, yes, it was nice out. Really nice.

Because of the near perfect weather out our stomachs began to giggle with glee, so we lit out to Reid Park to get a taste of what this fine azz city has to offer up.

Well, at least a dozen or so restaurants at least.

Armed with a bushel of food tickets, we made our way down the line of food vendors and sampled til we couldn't food sample no more.

Check it out...

If you haven't been to the Dakota Cafe, well....you need to.

Really fresh food, delightful appetizers that wont sink your gut and all of the fare is priced to invite everyone to try their wares. What we love is their Beer Garten. Always inventive and daring, their rotation of beers on tap never cease to amaze and their take on the Sonoran hot dog, as a bar bite, is really good. In fact, everything at Dakota is good.

For the Taste of Tucson event, they were serving up a rich and cheesy enchilada casserole that was jam packed with layers of Tucson inspired flavor. For our first bite this one really kicked things off for us. In fact, it almost made us full.

Almost.

But we were happy to see the nice folks at Dakota Cafe out and dishing out the goods, but it was time to move on to the delectable delight.

Delicious, savory and a bit decadent

Mama Louisa's Italian Restaurant has been a Tucson tradition since 1956 and, you know what?, we have never been.

Nope. Sorry. Kind of out of the way for us, being out on Craycroft and all, and our home base is definitely midtown, but after eating their divine ham and slaw sliders, we will definitely make our way out there someday for a heaping plate of their homemade pastas, sauces and Italian inspired food. Plus we heard that their cocktail lounge hasn't changed much since the early days of being in business and we like old creaky saloons that serve up an honest drink.

So just FYI Mama Louisa's, the Tucson Homeskillet is gearing up to make the trek out to you and eat and drink ourselves into a spaghetti and meatballs haze. Hope you're ready for us.

Because we are.

Man those sliders were good.

Okay...we're on our way.

Our first slider of the day

Not being a huge fan of regional French cuisine, the only reason we went to Le Rendez Vous is because it is literally next door to our favorite bar. It was lunch so we had their croque monsieur and their steak frites and were happy to discover that we actually dug their food. At least their lunch items anyway.

That being said we told ourselves we would go back for dinner some night but have yet to. Our turn of trying out new food trucks, tiny taquerias and bizarre food challenges seems to take over but, yeah, we'll give that spot another go ahead.

On this day though, our second foray into the world of sliders consisted of duck confit with an apple dijonnaise and pickled onions. These guys were rad. Unctuous with a brightness from the onions and a bite from the creamy spread. So far this was our favorite nibble.

But there were so many more food tents to travel to!

Moving on...

So rich and so tasty

"You work for the event?", asked one of the ladies from Lotus Garden. I guess she saw our "fancy" camera and us taking photos of all of the food and assumed that we were with Tucson Originals or volunteers for the event.

"Um, no...not really."

Not sure if that was an answer to satisfy them enough but they loaded us up with a plate that nearly toppled with Asian curried noodle goodness.

"Is that enough chicken? You want some more?"

"Um...sure."

They smiled bright as they continued to pile on the glistening yellow, succulent bites. We thanked them then headed off to a shady spot to enjoy and actual "plate" of food rather than a modest sampling.

Well thank you nice ladies of Lotus Garden! The noodles were awesome, the chicken was juicy and the mild curry you bathed it all in just made our mouths happily sloppy with Szechuan delight.

After this load we were starting to hit the food wall. But we were only halfway through our rounds.

With a brave heart and belly, we pressed on...

Asian curry noodles...yes, yes and yes

We drove by Eclectic Cafe once on our way to some party and we were all "Oh, there's that place! We need to go there someday."

Like most other promises to ourselves, that one just kind of fell to the whims of our full time jobs, other endeavors and getting pulled this way and that with various food adventures. So when we arrived at their tent we admitted to them that we had always meant to visit their restaurant on Tanque Verde but had yet to.

They seemed okay with it.

Thing is, we tend to stay away from "gluten free" eateries just because, well...just because. But after trying their take on Swedish meatballs we might have to make the journey to Eclectic seeing as their food is, well, eclectic and isn't just focused on being "gluten free", although they do have that option for a lot of their dishes.

For that we salute eateries that can accommodate those few that actually suffer from celiac, while other insist that gluten makes their tummy "all gurgly", but the nice folks at Eclectic made us change our minds about buzz word, bandwagon restaurants. Not that we are cataloging Eclectic Cafe into that genre, far from it. It's just....you know what we mean, right?

Anyway, the meatballs were good.

IKEA has nothing on these guys

Now this is a place we can get down with, mainly because it is just a few blocks from our compound.

Pastiche is a go-to for us, and has been for a while, mainly because their three cheese mac-n-cheese dish with spinach and bacon is totally addicting. Sure they have a multitude of amazing menu items, but if you've ever had their take on the kid friendly macaroni favorite, you know what we are talking about here.

No luck with getting a taste of their mac-n-cheese, rather for this occasion, they served up (yep...you guessed it) sliders!

These though, just like the others, were really delicious and extremely different from the last few we tried. They were slow cooked and pulled chicken in a sweet and spicy chipotle mango BBQ sauce and finished with a creamy and crunchy southwest slaw. All of the elements worked brilliantly but when we asked why they didn't make a ton of their mac-n-cheese they just gave us a "really?" look and told us how labor intensive that dish was.

A labor of love though. Lots of love goes into their mac-n-cheese.

We loved these sliders too.

Spicy slider goodness

Our final slider came courtesy of Mama's Hawaiian Bar-B-Cue and we were happy to move on from the mini sandwich bite item.

Luckily for us Mama's did us right with a good n' sticky pulled pork offering on a sweet King's bun. Really yummy. But what grabbed us was the tang and zazz that came from the side item, their macaroni salad. Was it because we were craving mac-n-cheese that made this accessory so good or was it, well...good?

It was good. Velvety and on point without deviating from what grandma might make for the church picnic. We wanted more but seeing as the event was drawing to a close and they were running low with more folks waiting in line to try it, we had to move on with our greedy shoulders hanging a bit low.

Good thing the macaroni salad is on their regular menu because next time we are in there you better bet we are getting that noise as a side item.

Macaroni salad. Who woulda thought?

The macaroni salad was surprisingly amazing

Now we've had Gourmet Girls before, just never at Gourmet Girls.

Again, its that gluten free dealy.

Thing is they make some of the most decadent and delicious confections and desserts ever and we can't wrap our meat and booze addled minds around how they do it doing what they do. But they do! And they do it well.

We treated our next to last stop as a well earned palate cleanser; a sweet bite before heading off into the pre-dusk glory of a most delightful day. Mini carrot cake and chocolate muffins kissed our slider ridden tongues and nipped our well sodden bellies with a sugary tickle. How they concoct such loveliness skirting certain necessary routes to achieve blissful cupcakery, we don't know. Honestly, we don't want to know. And just like our preconceived bias of other gluten free establishments, we plan on dining at Gourmet Girls in the near future.

They serve fish and chips there? For real? Oh. Oh we going...

Wait...how is this gluten free?

It was really cool to end a fun food day on a familiar note.

Many cheesy days and beer soaked nights are in thanks to the good people at Fresco Pizza. Just the fact that you can walk in and order a "Major Meaty" has always been a high point in our eating career. We ate their truffle oil and rosemary linguine cold in the morning on day. And you know what? It was scrumptious. Scrumptious we say!

Sluggish and ready for a well deserved liquid digestive, we grinned like a stuffed Cheshire Cat when we eyed their ample supply of garlic knots. Long gone were the pizzas, and we were okay with that. We were full. But the knots. Oh the knots! Charged with an ample amount of fresh chopped garlic, these little nuggets of puffed out devilry only made us collide even further into a near hallucinatory state of food buggery.

"You sure you didn't bring any beer from your place," we asked owner Britnee Cable. "Because you have Dragoon IPA on tap and that would be amazing right now."

She smiled and assured us no. No she did not bring any beer. But rather she apologized for running out of pizza.

"That's okay. It's time for a food nap. Thanks anyway."

With that we headed out, back to the car, sitting there in a near food catatonic state only to just fall asleep and wake up to a nice little girl asking us if we wanted some lemonade.

Great way to end the event, by getting seriously garlic faced

We would love some lemonade, we said to the smiling girl. And you know what?

The lemonade was delicious.

Thank you Tucson Originals! And thank you to all participating restaurants in this year's Taste of Tucson.

See you in 2017!

Cheers...

Yay!

Camera, Typing and all of the Eating
"Metal" Mark Whittaker
A Beautiful Early Autumn Sunday, 2016

Metal Influence: 

FIREBALL MINISTRY

"The Second Great Awakening"

PORKED!

The Tucson Homeskillet reports on the AZ Bacon Festival.

Bacon is mutilation!

So far the third installment of the Arizona Bacon Fest (http://www.arizonabaconfest.net) was off to a good start as that was the first thing we heard when we exited the car. Expecting to see a rag tag group of pasty protesters, gallant in their blonde dreadlocks and a reeking of a backlash decade’s long soy bender, what I got was a small group of tanned folk, ethnicity unknown as I was walking too fast to get a fair glimpse, dressed in what appeared to be their Sunday best or perhaps a fancy day out at their local Wal-Mart. I didn’t get it. I mean, I understand your convictions of consuming delicious meat, ripped and torn un-voluntarily from penned dumb animals and sold for our general consumption at your local market, but, jeeze man….this is the Bacon Festival. In Arizona mind you. Wild banditos and bikers high on methane and cheap swill don’t take kindly to piddly antics coming from fairly well dressed protesters such as yourselves. It was a good thing that the small band of baconphobes were slightly hidden and yelling their beliefs from behind the shells of 1980 era Chevys, hopefully knowing darn well that some muscle freak named Toad would not take kindly someone demeaning his favorite snack and his sweaty meat rage would take effect and a beating to those who think that collecting honey from bees is somehow a form of “rape” would be a most unpleasant yet fulfilling sight. 

So we kept on, me yelling the slightly rude “Tasty, tasty mutilation!”, as we grabbed our passes and made our way into the cured pork fray.

Let's do this!

This year’s AZ Bacon Fest was held at Kino Park (http://www.kinosportscomplex.com, 2500 E Ajo Way, Tucson, AZ) which is usually home to the baseball team the Tucson Padres; a team so feared and admired at the same time that at one instance they managed to sell out almost half the stadium when they played a likeminded team from Las Vegas. It was a veritable shut out, 1-2, with the Padres winning and a crowd member went mildly wild seeing as he had some cash riding on the event and his bar tab was close to $100. It’s a very green field. Not just the grass but it’s the seats, the backboards and a sort of “green monster” tribute, giving nod to an actual baseball field to an actual baseball team out in the reaches of Boston.

When we arrived a few minutes after the doors opened at 6pm, the field view from the top tier made it appear sparse with attendees. We could see the perimeter of the field lined with food and beer vendors, we could hear the echoing strains of a band covering “You Can Go Your Own Way” and the tented VIP area in the center filled with food judges and those that shelled out $125 to sit in said area who also received a special beer holder that you wrap around your neck allowing you to eat freely while not having to juggle your beer sample or, god forbid, put it on the ground for a second. But as we descended the steep stairs through the seats and bleachers, which were already dotted with large people that couldn’t complete the lengthy jaunt (this is a bacon festival keep in mind, Jillian Michaels did not RSVP I take it) or those that were already too drunk to stand erect on a soft grassy field. Which got me to thinking: Did folks actually pre-party before coming to the Bacon Festival, a place where free beer is doled out at every other kiosk? That would be madness. That is the same mentality as doing a bunch of blow before entering the great Illinois Cocaine Jamboree, an event where you literally stand on a giant mirror, are handed a straw that can extend up to 5 feet and Roombas set on ‘reverse’ that poop out fat lines all night long and food vendors have been replaced by chew toys and the band covers nothing but death metal. 

Bacon wrapped shrimp...we're off to a promising start

The crowd was bigger than I had anticipated, a thick maw of Tucson’s finest, Tucson’s service industry that got free tickets and dotted with those that seemed to have saved up for this because at $50 a pop just to get in, there sure were a lot of bad faded tattoos, scruffy midriffs, neo-gangster attire and confused looks as to what to do or where to go. Most of them congregated in tight groups, holding desperately onto their 2oz plastic beer mugs, shivering from a gusty late afternoon breeze asking each other what ‘pork belly’ was. 

Well...this line isn't too bad. I guess.

“It’s like bacon,” I overheard one dude say wearing an Insane Clown Posse shirt. “Only different. It’s sort of like bacon, but on a different level.”

He was right actually. It’s the same region here in America, but it is a completely different cut and cure method. Then I got the food knowledge shivers. Is everything here at the “Bacon Festival” going to be pork belly, that fatty and trendy pork product that neo-hipsters put in everything? Even before trying anything I started to get upset. So I calmed myself down, got us two beers and stood in line for…something.

That's not pork belly is it? It's bacon! Yes please...

That was one of the first things we noticed: We really didn’t know who was here and what they were serving. Sure on the website they give a few hints, like Mama’s Hawaiian BBQ, Lindy’s and Augustin Kitchen, but there were clearly more than the ten or so restaurants lining the stadium than was listed on the homepage. A map would have been nice. It became clear, quite quickly, that attendees were subject to their own plight and would just have to stand in line to see what was at the other end. 

We were lucky to get food from these guys. So good...

As we scanned the whole festival that was another factor that we were hit with: Lines. The whole field was awash with people standing there trying to get a gaze as to what they were queueing up for in the first place. My initial impression of the Bacon Festival was that of one filled with open pits of fire, large manly grills sizzling with twisting meats and bacon literally filling the Southern Arizona sky as patrons partook in an orgy of cured pork gastronomy and got high from the levels of smoke and smoke brined flesh and fat that would eventually give them a sweaty hangover for days to come.

Nope. Just lines.

After grabbing a much needed beer from the Sierra Nevada booth (http://www.sierranevada.com) we were lucky to find a food tent that wasn’t too busy. Unfortunately they were too busy playing catch up on their food samples to tell me who they were and what they were serving up, seeing as there was no signage indicating such, we grabbed a cup of whatever they were dishing up and dug in. Mind you, there isn’t a whole lot of “digging in” since these are just samples and tastings of their wares but….you get the picture. 

Delicious mystery bacon soup from a mysterious vendor

It was a spicy and really delicious bean and bacon soup with huge cuts of the meat sticking out of the tasty broth. Oh man. Nevermind what I was just thinking. If the food at the Bacon Festival is in this ilk, then we are going to be fine. Man it was tasty. So much that we went back for seconds. Who are these guys?

Next up we found a quaint and slightly busier venture called Evolve that were serving up some bacon wrapped burger realness. Again, the taste and quality was amazing. The bacon that surrounded the ground chuck was thick and dripping on my hands with pork fatty goodness.  Like the first booth we ate from, I wanted seconds but the burgers were going fast seeing as more and more people were walking down the steps and onto the field. At 6:30pm, the Bacon festival was starting to get busy. 

Chef Jay layin' it down...

Luckily I had a chance to speak with the owner of Evolve, Chef Jay, who informed me that they are a new startup and plan on changing the way we eat locally here in Tucson, especially with the meat. That’s a tall order seeing as our fair and dusty little hamlet is already a boon to the “farm to fork” concept with our thriving local merchants, seed libraries, orchards, co-ops and so on. But I had to give props to Chef Jay as his burger concept was one of the best I have had in Tucson. Then he scampered off because they were running out of food and the line was growing longer.

Just as we were coming down from our pre-conceived judging of the event after ingesting a few delicious samples of food, we were immediately met with another obvious oversight.

The trash.

This was only the beginning...

There was literally one trash barrel to every, say, three to four vendors, all of which were cranking out samples of food and beer at a, now, alarming rate. It was as if we had to play Trash Jenga to not litter the grounds so much. I was actually impressed at the levels of balance ingenuity the eaters and drinkers had at this stage. But it would only get worse and by close to 7pm, Kino Stadium was pretty packed.

At this still fairly early stage of the event, the grounds were now a swirling mélange of bacon goers and the lines were teetering on the idea of ludicrous speed. So much in fact we would just walk up to the table and ask what they were serving up before enduring a tummy grumbling wait.

“Well, what we have for you today is a pork belly…”

“Today we are serving up a pork infused….”

“This is a pork belly terrine with…”

And, my personal favorite: “This is a pulled pork sandwich.”

That’s it? Is it mixed with bacon? Is there a bacon jam? Is the sauce a sort of bacon marinade? Tell me kind sir….is there bacon in your pulled pork sandwich?

A dead stare. “No.”

Another line? C'mon!

So people are waiting for at least a half hour, if not more, to bite into something that isn’t even mingled or even near bacon. At a bacon festival. Unreal. Pork does not automatically equal bacon, especially pork belly. What was most disappointing was a Tucson favorite helmed by a local “celebrity” chef that were handing out tiny pork belly banh mi sandwiches. Now, this came as a particularly funny prospect as I had just written an article on the banh mi sandwich (a Vietnamese creation featuring a savory protein, usually pork, ironically, on a soft roll including jalapenos, cilantro and the like) and more than half of the restaurants that I featured in banh mi piece used pork belly. It got boring really quick. So it felt to me that this hot shot chef was all, “Oh. Bacon fest. Again? So soon? Okay, um…what’s everyone else doing? Pork belly? Sounds good. What’s that popular brunch place do with pork belly? A banh mi! Let’s do that…”

This is getting ridiculous...

Then this started happening.

Wait. We just got here.

At around the7:30/8pm mark, almost half of the vendors went dark due to running out of food. I really wanted to try a jalapeno bacon sushi roll but they were dry. There was yet another that was already packing it in because they had made a few hundred samples of some bacon….thing, and sold out. Did the vendors not keep up with ticket sales or was the “Bacon Festival” the sort of food-served-for-an-hour-then-its-all-beer-drinking-from-there type of congress? I couldn’t figure it out. 

It sounded good but....oh well.

Stopping by the ever amazing Lindy’s (http://www.lo4th.com, 431 N 4th Ave, Tucson, AZ) I found the owner and namesake Tweeting on his phone.

“Dude,” Lindy said, “I had fifteen hundred bacon wrapped pork Sonoran hot dogs…we sold out in an hour. Unreal.”

1500 Sonoran dogs. I don’t blame Lindy at all because that sounds prepared. Obviously when folks hit the turf they ran to where they knew they would get their money’s worth but those that even lagged a bit behind were met with the man himself Instagraming his success and amazement at the rapid rate his wares were handed out and then gone. 

Lindy posting about his 1500 samples gone in an hour

Luckily I did get to try the crabcakes with bacon aioli from Elliott’s (http://elliottsoncongress.com, 135 E. Congress Street Tucson, AZ) and Mama’s Hawaiian BBQ (http://www.mamashawaiianbbq.com, various locations across Arizona) which served up a tropical bacon wrapped pineapple feat, both of which were entirely delicious, savory and, thankfully, available. 

Elliott's crabcakes with bacon aioli was bomb

Okay, now that I had a bit of food in me and a few more beers, I started to settle down and relax. Sure it was crowded, sure the band was meandering on in A.M. lite rock expectancy and, yeah, a bunch of restaurants and food emporiums were shutting down, but it was a beautiful night, I ran into a few friends and my meat and beer buzz was afloat so I decided to ride out the rest of the festival with judgment free aplomb.

But that ended rather quickly.

The crowd, who for the most part appeared to be the Bud/Miller/Coors Lite drinking mob, were subject to sucking down beer that was far and above the 2 or 3% ABV (alcohol by volume) they were used to. Most of the beer they were sampling were in the 7 to 9% APV and the effects were starting to reveal itself. 

I can't believe my favorite brewery and beer was here!

They were getting louder. Some were falling down. Other retreated to the seats to pass out. There was some bro-tastic yelling and their dates yodeling the obligatory “Wooo!” As darkness approached, the seething mass was gurgling with apparent intoxication and now the Bacon Festival had transformed itself into a Beer Farts and Caterwauling Extravaganza. Leather garbed bikers emerged from out of nowhere asking “I wonder if there’s bacon beer!” Only later did I find the Harley Davidson tent so I’m sure certain “clubs” were given free passes and now they cohabitated, briefly, with fraternal drunkards that swayed in the gentle night air and to the band squeaking out a version of “Night Moves”. 

Do you know any Slayer?

Then through the night sky, a cloud emerged. At first I thought it could be Tucson’s lazy ruling on pot smoking laws….but no. It was the terrible whiff of cheap cigars, coming from somewhere in the center lanes. Walking by there I found a vendor selling El Ropo style cigars to beer soaked wannabe mack daddy kids that think by donning a smoldering turd in your mouth you are automatically a playa in a rap video being shot in slow motion. Mixed with piling trash, beer puke and desperation, the smell had overcome my short lived giddy mood and I knew the time had come to call it. 

*cough* Gross...

We mashed our way out, giving away our unused beer tickets to random friends that we passed and were eventually set free in the glorious fresh air above the regaling territory below. 

Bye buster Felicia...

“See you next year!” toned one of the gate keepers in a chittery inflection as we exited. I’m not too sure about that, I thought to myself.

The Arizona Bacon Festival isn’t terrible, but it is a work in progress. Obviously the good people of Tucson and the surrounding areas are willing to shell out a good amount of hard earned dough to eat fatty pork products and drink endless supplies of stiff ales and lagers, but the execution that we were witness to needs a bit of stitching up. 

I can't explain the terror we felt.

Vendors need to step up their supply game and work in communicating with the organizers. Staff up the event, hire volunteers and for craps sake get more trash cans. I mean, for real. There were times where it felt we were in the middle of a garbage strike and to deal with the grim reality of smelly piles all around us those in power decided to throw a bar-be-que and beer picnic to ease the pain. It wasn’t bad it just wasn’t…great. Maybe next year as the lady had prescribed to us.

Maybe next year.

Luckily there was an In-N-Out on the way home and consuming a double-double made things right. But to leave a bacon carnival hungry? C’mon. I just wished there was more pork in my belly when we left.

Wait a minute….

Camera and Typing by

Metal Mark

May 2015 

Metal Inspiration

Cannibal Corpse, "Eaten Back To Life" 

Listen to it here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C1Xr-2Qk6c