FESTIVE FOOD & DRINK

Festival’s Globe-Trotting Fare Satisfies Any Appetite

Stellar Lineup of Wine, Beer, Margaritas & Mojitos On Tap

Sip your favorite beverage in a beautiful, collector-item wine or beer glass adorned with the stylish festival logo. Festivalgoers will find spacious seating areas with umbrella tables and chairs located throughout the festival.

Menlo Park’s Santa Cruz Avenue will become a culinary melting pot on July 21-22, when vendors lining the street will transform it into an international food bazaar for Connoisseurs’ Marketplace, the city’s popular mid-summer festival of the arts celebrating its 26th anniversary this year.

Festival newcomer India Gourmet will bring a clay tandoor oven to turn out traditional steaming rounds of white and whole wheat naan bread. Their curry dishes include succulent tandoori chicken and lamb, as well as vegetarian options including eggplant, spinach, mixed vegetable and garbanzo bean. Additional Indian classics include samosas and basmati rice, mango lassis and chai tea.

From the Middle East, B Food International makes a classic gyro with thinly sliced lamb tucked into a pita with sautéed onions and cool cucumber-yogurt tzatziki. Their garbanzo falafels are made by hand, quickly fried, and served in a pita with sesame tahini. Other options include the all-American Philly steak and ribbon fries.

Asian food aficionados return year after year to the Sonoma Teriyaki booth for their garlicky-gingery chicken teriyaki skewers, delicate chow mein noodles, and fried rice flecked with fresh veggies. This year they’ll introduce crisp-fried artichoke hearts topped with crab or shrimp.

The folks at Lockeford Meat & Sausage deliver a hearty taste of Germany with their plump bratwurst. The smoked pork-and-beef blend with a hint of garlic is elevated to sausage perfection when paired with onions and sauerkraut in a soft hoagie.

In Mexico, it’s all about the complimentary flavors of spiced meats and corn. The Tamale Factory brings it out perfectly with their pork and chicken tamales and tacos served alongside classic rice and beans.

Main Street Food Concessions showcases the traditional street food of El Salvador — pupusas. These handmade disks of corn masa are stuffed with cheese and green onions, then topped with spicy cabbage slaw and tomato salsa. Seafood offerings include crispy fish tacos and fish ‘n’ chips.

Kauai Abreu Ohana features specialties from our own Hawaiian shores. Their signature dish, a succulent Kauai pork, is slowly cooked in Hawaiian salt for seven hours. They also make delicate barbecue-smoked teriyaki chicken and marlin. Accompaniments include rice and macaroni salad with pineapple.

The down-home cooking of the American South is celebrated at Aroma Concessions, with barbecued oysters, crab cakes, fried calamari, smoked turkey leg, tri-tip sandwich and portobello mushroom sandwich.

Sweet Delights elevates crab to new heights with its colorful and super healthy crab-avocado-mango stack, served with baby lettuces and a drizzle of remoulade sauce. Their deep-fried vegetables—zucchini, artichokes, asparagus and onion rings—get an added flavor dimension from a Parmesan cheese batter. Offerings also include a hand-dipped foot-long corndog, burgers and gourmet funnel cakes.

A street fair is never complete without good old American corn. Ear-Good Corn Roast makes fresh roasted corn and baked potatoes, while Suitcase Ron’s keeps the kettlecorn popping all day long.

Summery desserts definitely call for fresh fruit, and nobody knows more about strawberries than The Strawberry Company. The challenge is choosing from among the many desserts made from berries grown on their family farm: strawberry parfait, strawberry shortcake, decadent strawberry devil brownie mounds; elegant chocolate-dipped strawberries, and strawberry smoothies.

Rocco's Italian Ices are made using the old-Italian method of blending (not shaving) ice with fresh fruits, juices and purees to create icy smooth nonfat desserts in flavors like watermelon, peach, blueberry and pineapple. Other frozen desserts come from Kurlander Soft Serve, which delights kids and adults alike with swirled frozen yogurt in nine flavors, including chocolate, butterscotch, piña colada and blue goo.

Jamba Juice will be on site, blending up some of their famous smoothie creations, including Peach Pleasure, Mango A Go-Go, Razzmatazz and Caribbean Passion. And for the pure pleasure of hand-shaken lemonade, there’s nothing better than Barrett’s.