Summerfest (Milwaukee) 2008

MrsF and I took Thursday afternoon and evening and had a very pleasant time.
Until dark, this place never got nearly as crowded as the Taste will, and the $15 admission ($8 before 4) gets you a metric butt-shaking-load of music.

The food? Mostly pretty good:
The King and I: Satay, 4 hefty skewers for $6. Tasty, but a little gloppy (they're sitting in a coconut-milk-based sauce). Peanut sauce is a little wimpy, but a pretty good value.

Schwabenhof: Funnel Cake (without topping) $3. A good value, as the local carnival charges $5 (until you realize it's about 15 cents of ingredients -- but I'm not quibbling that here).

Venice Club: Fried eggplant strips with marinara $5.50. Huge serving of hot crispy soft sweet bitter goodness. Strange that they leave the skin on -- it's crispy but a little bitter. They also have a specialty pizza with alfredo sauce, chicken, artichokes and a couple things I forgot that sounded pretty good.

Wong's Wok: Crab Rangoon: $3 for 3 or $5.75 for 6. Large but not heftily filled, hot and crisp

Famous Daves: The one mistake of the bunch. $6 for a hot link sammy. Links were sliced 1/2" thick, on a hamburger bun. No smoke flavor at all, although the plastic-packaged "Devil's Spit" sauce added some good flavor. Not a great value, should have known better.

Lemonade Stand: A fresh-shaken lemonade for $3 is also better than the local carnival price.

The music? Here's what we listened to:
Paul Thorn: Hadn't heard him before, pretty good, but the performances outclassed the songs.
Sindoolaa African Music Band: Fun, dancing and african rhythms, how can you lose?
Alejandro Escovedo: Great guitar, enthusiastic energy, just wish I was more familiar with his music.
Ingrid Michaelson: Giddy, sexy voice, the crowd loved her.
Gomez: Pretty darn good
Lucinda Williams: Phoning it in, reading from her music book, looked tired
The Wailers: Rocked the house, packed solid in the Potawatomi stage. Strange to see sub 20-year-olds singing every note on thirty year-old music.