Love for the Locals: Taste of Edmonton 2015

Sadly, I had to miss the Taste of Edmonton last year due to being out-of-province for school, but I tried my best to make up for the loss this year! P and I continued the tradition of splitting a full sheet and looking out for the best things to taste!

 Day 1: July 19, 2015

First stop was Mikado! We got the Kara-age Chicken (4 tickets), but the owner, David remembered P taking photos for him and his wife with the Northern Lights, and was so kind to offer us a complimentary Green Tea Ice Cream (2 tickets) with adzuki bean topping! Thank you, David!!

Fairmont Hotel MacDonald's "MAC" Scone with Whipped Cream and Berry Compote (3 tickets) and Pork Taco with Kimchi Slaw and Lemon Thyme Aioli (3 tickets). So good...

Normand's Bistro's Beef Short Rib and Mash (3 tickets) and the Smoked Bison Carpaccio (3 tickets)! Deeelicious!

Select's Mac 'n Cheese with Maple Bacon (3 tickets)! Unfortunately, it was the most underwhelming pick we tasted today...

Sandwich and Sons' Montreal Smoked Meat Sandwich (3 tickets)! Pretty good, but my taste buds have been spoiled by the real deal from Schwartz's in Montreal...

Day 2: July 23, 2015

Duck Tots (4 tickets) from Attila the Hungry! I wanted to try these since What the Truck?! but the lines were insane. Worth the wait. I mean, how can you go wrong with duck and tater tots?

Vegetable Tempura (3 tickets) from Korean Village! Although not very Korean, they offered a decent portion size and clusters of deep fried vegetable goodness. Also self-serve tempura sauce and sriracha.

Butter Chicken (4 tickets) from Khazana! While not bad, I was slightly disappointed. Texture and flavour-wise, it was great, but it didn't have the kick of spice I'm used to getting from butter chicken.

Bully Mac (3 tickets) from Bully Food Truck! The cheesy flavour and texturally-pleasing toasted bread crumbs made up for the other Mac 'n Cheese we tried from Select last week.

Last but not least, the Dry Spicy Chicken (4 tickets) from The Ling Nan. The Ling Nan had its own weird Food Network show way back when, but I never got around to trying it. Honestly, it was alright. The portion size was decent, and they were nice and crispy, but still just alright.

This year, the full sheet had 40 tickets, and we used up 39 between the 2 days. Luckily, there is always a tent for donating leftover tickets, where proceeds will benefit one of the city's great orgs - this year, it was the Edmonton Food Bank.

P and I felt that we got a relatively good variety this time around, but there is definitely a trend of meat and fried food throughout. We also somehow opened and closed our tastings with some form of fried chicken... Not the worst way to go ;)

-M