Orlando Food and Wine Festival

I’m still tasting the prime rib sliders on buttery, biscuit-like buns. My lips still pucker at the thought of the cool Riesling (it was served in a see-through plastic cup, but it didn’t bother me in the least). Moist, rainbow-colored cupcakes in shot glasses continue to dance across my eyelids when I close them. And I’m still longing for just one more piece of the chopped bruchetta on a crunchy cracker drizzled with thickly aged balsamic vinegar – one of my biggest weaknesses along with chocolate and goat cheese.

To continue the three-month celebration of my birthday, my boyfriend and I took a trip to Orlando. Not for Disney, not for Universal and not for any of the subsidiaries, but for the downtown food and wine festival around Lake Eola. The festival lasted two days, Saturday and Sunday, so we made a weekend getaway around it.

Upon entrance, Andrew bought us a pack of tickets at $2 a ticket so that we could purchase food and wine from all the vendors we fancied. We decided a complete walk up and down the mile-long, one-street festival was pertinent before any purchasing or trying anything, no matter how tempting. We both internally and externally noted which tapas and wine goblets were the “must-haves” and the “definitely nots.”

Like ducks in a row, each vendor was given their spot next to some other vendor with equally delicious-looking food. The stands vied for attention by impressing with their food displays, wine bottles and signs. PF Chang’s piled mounds of fortune cookies, Primo displayed a fresh salad bar to decorate their Italian sandwiches, Pure Magic ice cream had nitrogen tanks to miraculously turn their cream into ice and The Boheme’s stand was decked to the nines in white tablecloths and a lamb carving station in the back. With only so many tickets and only so large of an appetite, where do you go?

The four- and five-star restaurants that typically take weeks to score a reservation at and tend make a bigger dent in your wallet than your pants were reduced to even smaller portions of shrimp scampi and lollipop lamb chops than usual. Their cost, though, three to four tickets a taste, was just a fraction of the restaurant’s cost and way too good to pass up. While it’s rare to eat at The Black Olive, Ruth's Chris Steak House and Il Mulino all during the same lunch, I had no problem stretching my stomach for a nibble of each.

But is it really fair to put significantly reduced-cost Ruth's Chris Steak House next to Tijuana Flats? Probably not. Yet with festival-goers in shorts and T-shirts because of the brutal Florida heat, no one was too good or underdressed for any restaurant. Little bites from each restaurant were affordable by all. For those with a keen eye and the ability to trace people like ants back to a food source, Kobe was serving full meals or chicken in black bean sauce, rice, veggies and lo-mein at the same price as a cupcake or two. Lines moved quickly, as most restaurants only served two or three mini dishes of the plates they deem to be the highlight of their restaurants.

Andrew and I enjoyed lunch, dinner and the following day’s lunch at the festival. With each bite of food I took, I could taste the pride and the love of its creator. My favorite tapas included (but were certainly not limited to) tender, grilled lollipop lamb chops and smashed potatoes, aranchini in marinara sauce, coffee gelato smooshed between two mini, double-chocolate cookies, shrimp in a butter sauce atop a crunchy piece of bread and the filet mignon in a fig puree. You’ll have to excuse me for not recalling where each scrumptious dish came from, but with a wine-fogged mind, I’m sure you’d forget too.

A food and wine festival would be nothing without the alcohol. Wines from Bulgaria, California and France flowed freely from noon to 9 p.m. Because of the heat, I always drank a chilled white to keep me cool. Andrew craved pale ale and gulped down large cups of beer. While we learned nothing about beer or wine pairings with our food selections, we did sip on some tasty beverages before listening to the live music and watching the celebrity chefs cook.

The executive chef Matthew Price from The Capital Grille in Orlando took to the stage to demonstrate his signature medium-rare sliced filet with Cioppolini onions and wild mushrooms. Using fig essence and demi glace, Price showed exactly why a good meal is worth savoring. Other chefs taught their secrets of bananas foster, Nova Scotia lobster tail and holiday tres leches cake with seasonal flavors of Eggnog.

While the festival featured only Orlando restaurants and was geared toward Orlando residents, it celebrated food and wine, which people from anywhere can appreciate and enjoy. It reminded festival-goers of the joy of sharing recipes, cooking, walking around outside, socializing, listening to live jazz and eating food all types, reaffirming my love affair with food (and my boyfriend, for bringing me).