ETHNIC FESTIVAL, Kansas City, August 18, 19, 20

Hearing all the talk about Taste of Chicago made me think of this, my favorite thing about Kansas City food. Ever since I first heard about/went to it a few years back, it's what I look forward to in KC each year. It's basically a huge circle of booths, each one dedicated to a different country (around 35 or 40). All but a few offer several authentic home made dishes priced generally from $.50 to $3.00. There is an entrance fee of $2, and when you come in they give you a very useful paper fan.

Highlights include the Lithuanian booth with fresh baked breads and delicious torte (chocolate/raspberry, apricot, coffee); The Philippine booth has some of the best grilled pork on a stick I've tasted that is piping hot and juicy with a light, flavorful glaze on it. They also serve a good looking rice noodle dish which I haven't tried. Columbian black beans with rice and arepas are comforting and yummy. Korean glazed fried chicken wings CANNOT be missed for there sticky/crispy/juicy freshness and are served with light and crunchy vegetable tempura. The Danish Aebleskiver (pancake balls) always have the longest line but it's fun to watch them being made to order in front of you while waiting. I believe it's the Iceland booth that serves the crepes wrapped around fresh whipped cream and jam. If your feeling adventurous, have a haggis pup from the Scottish booth. It's a haggis hotdog, and actually has pretty good flavor, although the texture was too weird for me. There's Ethiopian, Indian, Brazilian, German, and many other booths. Some are run by local restaurants but most are not.

The temperature is usually 80-90 degrees, and I always stop by the Hawaiian booth for a snow cone. I'm picky about mine-they need to actually have the texture of fresh snow, with no crunchiness, and these deliver. Several booths have nice breads and pastries for sale(a favorite of mine is the German cherry strudel-soft, tart, buttery, sweet), as well as interesting and refreshing drinks.

There are a few countries to watch out for. The Italian booth has nasty nasty overcooked spaghetti w/ canned sauce and frozen pizza. China has two booths for some reason and they both have pretty generic crab rangoon/fried rice/egg roll type things that don't taste very good. For the most part though, it's easy to spot the bad options, and there aren't too many.

In the center of the circle is a stage, where one by one throughout the weekend, reps of the countries come up and do special dances to their native music. There's Brazilian Capoeira(I'm pretty sure), Native American drumming, Irish Jig dancers, plus a lot more that I can't remember. There's plenty of seating around the stage, so it's a great area to sit and enjoy your food in.

In addition to food, most of the booths have crafts and/or clothes for sale.

I've learned to get there either early the first day to avoid crowds or later in the evening to avoid the heat. My only problem is that I get full before I'm finished, so I usually end up going 2 or all 3 days. I suggest you bring your own huge bottles of water. Water's cheap there, but cheaper to bring it, and you'll be drinking a lot.

It's a wonderful festival full of fun entertainment and delicious food. The food is the main thing. It's like all at once going to 40 different families' homes in 40 different countries and having them cook for you. Very comforting.

I probably won't make it this year, and have made Taste of Chicago my replacement festival(my first time to go). Hearing people's problems with it though(not enough ethnic offerings, too crowded to move, too expensive) has made me even more nostalgic. If you are going to be in KC during the Ethnic Festival, PLEASE DO NOT MISS IT. (and can you bring back some pics of food for me?)


http://www.eeckc.org/events/festival.html

Nice post bnowell724!

The fest is indeed a culinary highlight. And hot!, as you mention. The Danish guys making the Aebleskiver are in fact husbands who got roped into it years ago and now are so skilled that they enjoy it! I spent a happy quarter hour year before last peeking over their shoulders as they rolled and rolled and rolled.

The Indian booth has those wonderful drinks, the 'shakes' whose name I can never remember, there's always Latino food galore, Russian folk dancing, etc. etc. etc.

It's a wonderful fest, been going on now for a very long time.

Any LTHers think they might make it?

Tnx again for the nice post!

Geo

Geo wrote:Any LTHers think they might make it?

I'm seriously considering it. It's on my calendar, at least; so the plan is in motion.

If your plans firm up, let me know, maybe we could get together--that'd be great. I get back from Montreal the evening of the 16th, so I'll be here a day earlier. PM me if you'd like.

Geo

Glad you liked my post, Geo. I hope you guys get to go, although I'll be so jealous of you! Maybe I can still find a way to get there...

Are any of you guys still going? I'll be there!

Darn if I didn't just get back from Kansas City! My first trip there, and purely business, so I didn't get to eat anything worth eating, really. In fact, last night was forced to eat at the rotating restaurant atop the Hyatt Regency ("Skies"), which added one more strong data point in support of Mike G's general rule about eating at a place that's best known for the view. Anyway, this meal created a trivia question that better belongs in another thread, so I'll post it in Not About Food.

Jeez, JiLS, what a pity: no KS bbq or fried chicken...

Next time you're going to be in town, give me a shout, maybe we can share a rib together.

Geo

Looks like it's a no go for me...an jim, you were but a few blocks away from Danny Edwards Eat it 'an Beat it. Sorry you missed it.

Geo wrote:Jeez, JiLS, what a pity: no KS bbq or fried chicken...

Next time you're going to be in town, give me a shout, maybe we can share a rib together.

Geo

This is the problem of being on a business trip with a group that needs to be fed and not having control over where that feeding will occur. They really thought they were doing us a favor by taking us to "Skies," rotating high above the city, where we could observe the clouds of smoke rising from the various BBQ stores while eating our overcooked, overpriced steaks and enjoying KC's version of "fancy service," circa 1980. Ah, well. I'm sure I'll get back there on my own one of these days. I did have one good breakfast, at the newly reopened Harvey House in Union Station, where I enjoyed some really good biscuits and gravy Thursday morning in what I thought was a historic diner. As I learned when I got back to my hotel room and opened up the Kansas City Star, I was half correct. The space, now nicely (re-)set out as an ENORMOUS diner, with an 80-seat plus counter, tables and booths in a mixture of beaux arts and art deco styles, was indeed a restaurant/diner many years ago. This was evidenced not only by the photos on the wall of the place itself, but also by the article in Thursday's Star.

Appears that more recently, after the rehab of Union Station as a "festival marketplace," this space did time as a fast food court for a number of years, and didn't do so well. The management of Union Station decided they needed a reasonably priced alternative for good food (imagine that!) that families and business people could enjoy on a daily basis, instead of just the several high-end restaurants in Union Station that serve the top end, and fast food, which can be found anywhere, at the bottom.

Well, the refurbished Harvey House (re-)opened just last Friday; stumbling on it as I did, I had no conception of its history, or that it wasn't just a very well preserved relic that had been calmly serving a (much reduced) crowd the same diner fare as it used to provide for thousands of soldiers, families and traveling salesmen, 24/7 during the middle 20th-century. So, after my slighting of KC's fancy rotating feedbag in the Skies, I hope the Citians of Kansas will accept my unreserved compliments for this daring, thoughtful and highly successful effort to buck trends, look backward, ignore corporate market research and instead give people a place they can actually enjoy, afford and possibly make a part of their daily lives. Which, I hope, will help make Union Station less of a reliquarium and more a part of the life of the city, as well. (That plus the new pedestrian bridge connecting Union Station to the Freight-house District, former site of our client's Superfund site at 21st and Wyandotte that brought me to KC in the first place.)

stevez wrote:Looks like it's a no go for me...an jim, you were but a few blocks away from Danny Edwards Eat it 'an Beat it. Sorry you missed it.

I was only a few blocks from a LOT of stuff I missed out on. Next time...

You Lived the American Fried/Calvin Trillin "Revolving French" experience within Blocks of the
Q Joints he described.

bbqboy wrote:You Lived the American Fried/Calvin Trillin "Revolving French" experience within Blocks of the
Q Joints he described.

Yet, I did have a delicious experience at the renovated Harvey House, and more important to my memory of the city was my visit to the restored Liberty Memorial. Trudging the hundreds of steps up to this monument in the 95 degree heat was nourishing in its own way, and I can assure you, I was not missing barbecue while walking that path. I strongly encourage anyone visiting Kansas City to make this opportunity for themselves.

JimInLoganSquare wrote:
Yet, I did have a delicious experience at the renovated Harvey House, and more important to my memory of the city was my visit to the restored Liberty Memorial. Trudging the hundreds of steps up to this monument in the 95 degree heat was nourishing in its own way, and I can assure you, I was not missing barbecue while walking that path. I strongly encourage anyone visiting Kansas City to make this opportunity for themselves.

My most interesting factoid about the memorial is that the giant "eternal flame" shooting out of the tower at night is actually lighted, billowing cloth and some steam. It's a very convincing illusion, though. Oh...and there is an elevator, you know.

I was only talking about the walk from Pershing to the top of the hill to get to the base of the monument, which was closed for the day when I got there around 5:30. That's quite a hike in itself. And yes, the "flame" is a very convincing illusion.

The weather cooled down nicely today (= Sunday), and the humidity relented a bit too. So, all in all, a great day to go to the festival. 40-some booths, most serving food. The Serbian booth had wonderful garlicky cevaps; Turkey had a superb donor half-pita sammich; goat meat stew at Nigeria; glazed, grilled pork skewer at Phillipines; grilled chicken with coconut-chili sauce and sweet hot raiseny rice at the Maylasian/Indonesian booth.

Lots of folks there, whole bunch of them trying new stuff and, nicely enough, enjoying it. I went hungry but that wasn't the way I left!

KC does a nice job on this fest, it's a lot of fun.

Geo

Geo wrote:The weather cooled down nicely today (= Sunday), and the humidity relented a bit too. So, all in all, a great day to go to the festival. 40-some booths, most serving food. The Serbian booth had wonderful garlicky cevaps; Turkey had a superb donor half-pita sammich; goat meat stew at Nigeria; glazed, grilled pork skewer at Phillipines; grilled chicken with coconut-chili sauce and sweet hot raiseny rice at the Maylasian/Indonesian booth.

Lots of folks there, whole bunch of them trying new stuff and, nicely enough, enjoying it. I went hungry but that wasn't the way I left!

KC does a nice job on this fest, it's a lot of fun.

Geo

I had seriously thought about visiting this weekend. I think I will next year though.

i went on friday and saturday. my 2 favorite booths-Denmark(danish pancakes) and North Korea(Korean wings and tempura)-weren't there .
But I still ate lots of good stuff. Everyone was grilling and it smelled great. Phillipine booth was one of my favorites. I liked getting their banana fritters(turon) and eating them w/ the green tea ice cream from Japan. Columbian booth had really good empanadas made w/ corn and served w/ a fresh salsa, and their arepas were great too. The Irish booth, which I usually don't visit, had awesome fresh squeezed lemonade. Ooooh and the jerk pork from Jamaica was realllly good-crispy charred and juicy and spicy. They also had Ting to drink w/ it. People on here seem to always be looking for goat, and about 3 diff. booths were serving it. I never tried it though.

Well, two years later, I finally made it. The weather was perfect this year, and this is an absolutely terrific festival. I wasn't sure if we were going to make it at all, and unfortunately only got to go one day and sample a smattering of booths. I'd forgotten to check here first, but looks like I managed to happen into some of bnowell724's highlights anyway.

The easy highlight of the event for me though....heck, the highlight of several months...was the Isaan sausage (sai grog esan, I think was their spelling). Thai restaurants in town had been unable to help me here. Turns out the folks who own Oriental Market (a Thai grocer) at Quivira and Shawnee Mission Pkwy make their own, and it's absolutely wonderful.

This version was considerably different than the versions I've had in Chicago, but no less good. There was a lot of ginger, lemongrass, and chili heat in the sausage, which was interesting, as I'm more accustomed to getting the heat and the ginger as accompaniments to the sausage, but wow, it was terrific. Served whole, hot, and on a stick, I can't wait to pick some of these up and grill them. The moo ping and the banana/black bean/sticky rice tamale from the Thai booth were also good.

There was a Hmong sausage that had big gelatinous animal bits in it and tasted a little more like a hot dog. I didn't like this one as much, though some surely would, including my 4-yr-old.

Fried stuff I didn't care for so much, which tended to limit options a little bit. The curry puff from Malaysia's filling was good, but the oil tasted old, and the vegetable fritter (think pakora) from Indonesia was greasy and kind of gross.

The Aebelskiver from Norway were really good...little pancake balls cooked in a special pancake-ball-pan and dusted with powdered sugar. It cracked me up that Norway was selling Voss water.

From Israel, we got a competent hummus and falafel plate.

And right at the end, we picked up the chocolate raspberry torte from Lithuania. The boys saw one being eaten and really wanted it. Kate and I though it would be some mediocre cake, but man, it was excellent. Sometimes you get lucky listening to your kids.

Lithuania's bacon buns and Brazil's feijoada were highlighted, but sold out before I got any.

I would have liked to explore the eastern European sausages a little more, the Kenyan food, and the goat curry from Jamaica, and reading up above, I wish I'd hit Korea.

All in all,I really dig this festival. What a great event, and great weather this weekend.

I'm used to the Chicago street festivals, which are terrific, but often oppressively crowded and with subpar run-of-the-mill food. This festival is a great change of pace, and sort of a microcosm of the beauty of Kansas City...a terrific, cosmopolitan event on a very manageable scale.

Very cool.

Aaron,

We spent the weekend up in Milwaukee at Irish Fest, attending numerous uninspired performances with few highlights. The food was a mixed bag, with an excellent corned beef sandwich from McBob's being the standout. The best food of the weekend was had on the way up to Milwaukee at Fred's Bar in Burlington. Fred's is home to "The World's Best Hamburger", at least by their own declaration. The burgers there are quite excellent and could easily compete with any of those mentioned on the various Top 10 Lists that have been published over the years.

I mention all of this because, frankly, I think you had a better weekend than we did and I would seriously consider coming to Kansas City next year rather than making the trek north as we have done for the past 20 or so years. Is the Ethnic Fest held the same weekend every year?

The irony is that my brother in law came up here from KC in order to attend Irish Fest with us. Maybe next year we will switch things around.

Congratulations on a weekend well spent.

Buddy

P.S. Maybe I'll see you this year at the American Royal BBQ Cook-Off the first weekend in October.

B.