Sometimes, Yelp finds you things that are worth going to, whether it's restaurants, events, or…read moremore. I found this on Yelp Events and honestly, it was a toss-up whether I should go or not. I knew I would only be able to show up on the Saturday for this year as this was my only day off in almost 2 weeks. I checked the weather and decided that if I was gonna go, I would need to be prepared, so I bought myself an umbrella a few days before over at REI's Norwalk location to deal with the rain today. Also, you use tickets that you buy ahead of time if you want to buy anything here. They're $1.10 a ticket. I got 50 tickets in total.
It's a 2-day festival, but some things in the event are only available on one day of the two, so you kind of have to pick and choose what you're doing there. Thankfully, when I went I was able to visit the Yelp table to grab myself some souvenirs. I got souvenir box that had hand sanitizer, matches, a mint lip balm, and Yelp sunglasses with UV 400 eye protection. I also got to have a 360 video cam session that was much appreciated from their table.
Much like the review before me, I'm not going to review each of the restaurants I went to the food stands for. I feel like in order to leave an honest review, I would need to come back to Hartford at a later date and go to the actual restaurants in person. But I will briefly talk about each of the places I did visit.
First there was Hartford Flavor Company where I got to sample a sour cherry shot and a chocolate shot. I preferred the chocolate, but I do get why the sour cherry is a staff favorite. I got what I believe was the lavender toast? It was 8 tickets.
Next, I had to stop by Trumbull Kitchen's tent as I had passed by the actual restaurant right after I got off the 928 bus on my way to the festival. I got their Yuzu margarita which was my favorite drink of the day. 10 tickets, and the people there were nice.
After that, Black Eyed Sally's. I will say this was my least favorite stop of the 5 I did, but what I got was still pretty good. I had the BBQ Pork sundae, which was supposed to be 14 tickets. I say "supposed to be" because I asked the employee tending to my order to take the tickets needed and she took 15. She wasn't exactly the friendliest person I met that day, but I still got my order quick, so I'm not gonna complain too much.
Next, I needed something cold to balance out the heat from the last thing I ate, so I did Capital Ice Cream and got The Hartford Dough Down. This cost me 11 tickets, but service here was much friendlier than at Black Eyed Sally's. The ice cream was probably my favorite food item of the day. Actually, I had wanted to say that to the person I bought my tickets from, but that person was gone when it was time for me to leave. C'est la vie!
Lastly, I needed to get rid of my last 6 tickets, so I went over to The Hooker Brewery and grabbed a Chill AF. It costs 5 tickets, but I let them have my final ticket to make 6. They seemed like nice people, and it was a good drink to end off the food tour.
Overall, The Hartford Taste is a good time, but if I were to go again, I would make sure not to go on a rainy day. On a nice day, this can really be a great early summer attraction. I still had fun nonetheless and would be down to try it again in the future.
Of the places I went to, I would most want to come back to try Hartford Flavor Company, Trumbull Kitchen, and Capital Ice Cream in earnest.