Arts in the Heart

This weekend is the annual Arts in the Heart cultural festival (Friday - Sunday) so Brian and I went to it last night. We had a great time.

The featured country this year is the Philippines so I was especially interested in attending since I am half Filipino. We arrived at around 5:30pm to perfect weather (high 70's) which held throughout the evening. We started with the art booths and browsed an assortment of jewelry, photographs, wind chimes, pottery, and other hand-made art work. We didn't purchase anything but did enjoy looking at it all.

By the time we made our way to the food booths/global stage area, the opening ceremony was about to begin. We watched the introduction of the countries and then decided to get some food.

There were two booths I really wanted to stop at--the Philippines and the Pacific Islanders. In reviewing the food menu I found online earlier in the day, I knew I also wanted to sample the desserts from the French booth. I barely ate that day in anticipation of trying all this food!

As we made our way to the Philippines booth, I was happy to see so many people lined up in front of it. We ordered the chicken adobo over rice, pancit (noodles), lumpia (similar to an egg roll), and maruya (banana fritter).

We also stopped at the Korean booth and got some bul go gi (skewered beef) and chop che (noodles). We figured this was enough for round one of our food sampling so we headed over to a bench to eat.

Overall I was disappointed with the food from both booths. The adobo was not vinegary enough, the pancit was too vinegary, and the bul go gi was tough as leather. The lumpia was decent as were the Korean noodles. The best thing was the fried banana fritter though it was wrapped in what appeared to be phyllo dough rather than dipped in batter before frying.

Here is my dear hubby chowing down--I love how supportive he is in trying the foods from my culture!

We walked around for a bit more and then decided it was time for round two. So we made our way over to the Pacific Islanders booth.

The Chamorro plate we ordered included hineska (sticky rice), tininon monnok (chicken martinated in a Guamanian sauce and grilled), monnok kadon peka (chicken cooked in a spicy sauce), lumpia (similar to an egg roll), and pancit (noodles). We also got the mama ais dutse (frozen blended banana/orange drink) and the blue Hawaiian shaved ice slush. Armed with all this food we headed over to the dining tent.

This selection was much better than what we had earlier. My favorite was the monnok kadon peka—it tasted more like chicken adobo than the adobo we got from the Philippines booth. Their pancit and lumpia was great as well—Brian especially liked the veggie and beef filling in this version of lumpia.

The drinks were just okay. Here is mama ais dutse.

I’ll share a little secret…my big, manly husband has a soft spot for fruity, blended drinks. He was thoroughly embarrassed by the sunflower cup though so guess who had to carry it to the table!

We were stuffed by the time we were through so it was a good thing that the French booth was a no-show. I did stop by the German booth to pick up a piece of plumb cake which we ate later in the evening as we enjoyed the singer/songwriter contest at the community stage. We capped off the night with a stroll back to the car atop the levy along the river walk. I’m already looking forward to next year’s festival!