This year's Folklife Festival was so joyful and rich and varied -- fantastic. However, volunteer…read moredrummers near the food trucks and some of the tents drowned out the music and ruined my ears for 2 days. Please don't let continuous drumming -- they never stopped. Not for a second. Ruined our experience of your beautiful festival.

What a fun - and FREE - annual, weekend-long event (donations accepted, recommended at $10/day) run…read morecompletely by volunteers! Join in on any day Friday through Monday each year for Memorial Day weekend to listen to music of all genres and from around the globe! Participate in various music-related jams, classes, workshops, as well as dance and sing your heart out. Northwest Folklife also hosts other events throughout the year, but the Folklife Festival, of which 2019 marks the 48th year, is probably the biggest and best for all ages and stages of life. Take advantage of the Artists at Play Playground and the International Fountain while at the Seattle Center. Buy as much Festival gear as you can to support the efforts and allow them to keep coming back year after year.

I attended this event on Saturday, Feb. 24, 2018 at the Bell Harbor International Conference…read moreCenter, on 2211 Alaskan Way, Seattle. I heard so much great things about this event and I was asked by my friends to join this year. This was my first time and there was really nothing memorable other than standing out in the cold with my $85+tax ticket and then to find out that the place is jam-packed with people like Black Friday Walmart once you make your way inside. I am not sure how people can drink (alcoholic beverages) and carry around fancy restaurant catered food through multiple floors and thousands of people. The whole experience reminded me of a being in a club, actually worse. Coat check was free and that was the only good part. There were two volunteers, an elder lady and a young gentleman from Northwest Harvest and they were very kind and efficient. The venue itself made it extremely difficult to navigate through different food /spirits /wine tables. I heard many people (whom I assume attended previous events) complaining that "this is F***ed up. They shortened the time (from 1-5pm to 2-5pm for general admission and raised the price; and VIP admission is from 1-5pm with $110 price tag per ticket); and they really need to bring this back to Seattle Exhibition Center (where everything was on one large floor, not divided into 3 different areas / 2 different floors).!!" As for the wine and food "experience" nothing stood out. I did not even see Chateau St. Michelle or Columbia Winery. Probably explains a lot when those big name vendors didnt bother signing up this year. Most of wineries featured were young wineries that I had absolutely no interest in trying. I did enjoy DeLille Cellars and Corliss; and 4 wineries that made out to Seattle from Oregon (Lange and Duck Pond to name a couple). There is no way you could enjoy all the wine and food they offer in 3 hours when it takes 30-minutes to get in and they start quickly clearing everything around 4:40pm. So you basically have 2:30-4:30 to fight your way through the crowd and dont even really get to chat with wineries about how their wine is barrelled or aged. This is not the experience I was looking for and I actually enjoyed the cheaper event I went a year ago at the McCaw Hall. I dont need fancy food if I can barely get any tasting of wines which is what I really came for. Oh here are photos I took of Top Pot doughnuts table; and two bottles of Wine I enjoyed.

This review is for POP! Seafood 2017 only. I was actually very excited about it and it was kind of…read morea let down. There were more wines/champagnes than food. I am a seafood lover, but not necessarily very comfortable in the raw seafood territory. Most of the stalls had types of poke and lots and lots of raw oysters. I think I was expecting more of crabs/lobsters which I did not see. It's definitely a fun event. It has a cocktail party ambience and dress code. Make sure you carry your printed pass and Id. They have a coat checkin at the entrance. If you like raw oysters you would love it. But I would still argue it's not worth $85 per person. There is only so much alcohol I can take to get buzzed yet stay in my feel good zone. Grand tasting would better suit my taste buds. For next time!

Attended the Live Aloha Hawaiian Cultural Festival over the weekend at Seattle Center. This is the…read morefestival's 6th year. I found this year's event to be the best edition so far. The festival has grown for the better. Compared with a past edition that I attended, this year's event had significantly more food vendors and entertainment. If you wanted to try Hawaiian barbecue, shave ice and malasadas in Seattle (in one place), this event is your best opportunity to do so. As for entertainment, there were three stages (two outdoor and one in the Armory). As well as a side stage in the Armory for "talk story" events. I thought the attendance for the event was quite large compared to other heritage festivals that I have been to at Seattle Center. There was plenty of people wearing Hawaiian aloha wear at the event and talking in pidgin that you felt a little like you were actually back in the islands. Being a Hawaii native, it was nice to see that there was a large turnout celebrating the place that I call my real home. Like being in Hawaii, there was a wait for food. Though the lines for Hawaiian barbecue did move rather quickly. The fare was plate lunch grinds and most of the vendors were selling many of the same things. I had a great laulau/kalua pork/ahi poke plate from Kama'Aina Grill that was delicious. If you like grilled marinated meats, attending this festival is an awesome event to get some. I did also try out the shave ice from Da Hula Hut. There was a large line for it, but I decided it was worth waiting for given the summer heat. The shave ice was not bad (syrups are sweet), though better in Hawaii. It is no Waiola Shave Ice, but I will take what I can get. There was also a long line for malasadas, but that was a line I refused to get in. I will just wait till I can get some at Leonard's in a few weeks. I would have liked though to have seen a Hawaiian cake vendor (haupia/chantilly/guava) at the event though since we do have a few of these in the Northwest. Enjoyed my time at Live Aloha and look forward to coming back next year for more Hawaiian culture and food.

I love going to events of my home state, here in Washington state! No, this is no cheesy luau event…read morecultural appropriation everywhere. This event got almost everything, besides the weather and REAL beaches to cure those home sicknesses. Food was delicious, I got a chicken pastele stew plate with passion orange guava Hawaiian Sun and poi mochi. Hawaiian music to put you into that feel good vibe, made me reminisce about Birthday Bash at the Shell. Wish the event more into the middle of summer, especially, not the first week of the NFL. My fantasy team still got the W, though. But I'd still go, every year! Cheeeee!

My first wine walk ever and it was so much fun! Old Bellevue is south of the Bellevue Downtown…read morePark. Fifteen businesses running along Main Street hosted twenty wineries. It is a great event that supports the local merchants and community. The walk ran from 5 PM to 8 PM. VIP tickets were $45 and granted an hour of early access starting at 4 PM plus small bites at four of the host venues. General admission tickets were $30 if purchased in advance and $40 at the door, although tickets were already sold out on the day of. Admission included twelve wine tasting tickets. Extra tickets could be purchased at $5 for an additional three. Registration was located at two places: 520 Bar & Grill and Zenrock Fitness. A plastic souvenir GoVino wine glass was given to use for the tasting. I had a VIP ticket and also received a wine carrier tote bag. Purchases could be dropped off at the Bottle Valet at 520 Bar & Grill. Wine bottles were sold tax free and had a $5 discount if two or more bottles were bought from the same winery. Bottles ranged from $10 to $60. Since snacks catered for VIP ticket holders only lasted the first hour, we tackled those places first. Even if not a VIP, a good number of the vendors provided offerings, such as charcuterie boards or chocolate, to pair with the wine. A few handed coupons or swag as well to promote their business. The VIP hosts were Zenrock Fitness, Bar Moore & Realogics Sotheby's, Whisk, and 520 Bar & Grill. Whisk was by far the best as it is a venue for cooking classes, followed by Bar Moore. As for the meet and greet with winemakers, it was quite the experience to learn and taste all sorts of wines I had never heard of before. We ended up visiting every place and trying all of the wineries. I am no wine connoisseur, but I could still distinguish the quality and taste of the wine. Structure Winery won as both of our favorites. Twelve tasting tickets for each of us was ample and we were there for three hours. Downtown Bellevue has street parking along with nearby public parking lots by the park. The area surrounding Main Street offers many various restaurants and retailers. The city has free Wi-Fi.

Great weather... a chance to try multiple new wines.. VIP tickets courtesy of the Old Bellevue…read moreMerchants Association and Yelp... how could you not go?!? Add in, getting to explore the many merchants in beautiful Old downtown Bellevue, it was a perfect opportunity and very much appreciated! Huge thank you to the Old Bellevue Merchants Association and Jennifer J. and Yelp for the great opportunity! Check in was quick, friendly, and easy, everyone was great at explaining the process and suggested routes to take. With over 600 people at this sol d out event, I would definitely say VIP tickets were great! You start an hour before regular ticket holders , and although some station had light snacks, such charcuterie boards, that were set out for the first hour, many continuously replenished the boards throughout the event. I can honestly say that I didn't have one tasting that didn't at least have me intrigued enough to want to try more from each winery or purchase bottle(s) from. Being from Nor-Cali can sometimes be a detriment to experiencing wines from other regions, but I've been mildly surprised at the Wonderful Washington wines I've experienced. I've also found it interesting that most of the wine grapes are grown in eastern Washington, but the tasting rooms are more local... gotta go where the people are sometimes, which is a bonus for us in western Washington. I tried to show as many of wines tasted in the multiple pictures taken and info about each tasting station. It would difficult to just pick one for sure, but I have to say a shout out to Browne Family Vineyards, for being on task on a very busy evening and also being the 'bonus' No ticket needed stop. Loved the 'Do Epic Shit' red blend... a great red blend with a epic title. It was a pleasure to see Washingtonians out and enjoying the sunshine, with great weather wines, and Bellevue's beautiful old downtown area. Lots of great restaurants, clothes shopping venues were highlighted as stations for this event, so you really could explore all the downtown area. One I noted for myself, since I love to cook was Whisk, a great stop for the Patterson Sangiovese, checking out all the cooking gear, and the delicious snacks being prepared in the teaching kitchen area, definitely looking into their events schedule. I highly recommend attending this event as well as other Wine walks that are hosted throughout the greater Seattle area during spring through fall. Great ways to try multiple wineries and explore places you may not regularly visit and be surprised at what you find. Fun times! Happiest Yelping, God bless and Cheers!

The Dragon Fest was once a day time summer event, focused on the Chinatown portion. Because of…read moreCOVID this year, it's instead evolved into a day and night C-ID Night Market, representing all of Chinatown-International District - an 8-hour event from 1pm to 9pm. I must say I am impressed with the turnout. While it has always been well attended, we arrived at 8:50pm, expecting to see a mostly closed street fair. Instead, all the booths are still hopping. Shoppers are shopping, and eaters are ordering food and drinks. There may have been such a HUGE turnout that the food lines were very long. When we arrived so late, the vendors were still merrily cooking while some food trucks had "sold out" stickers on selected items. How exciting for them to make up for the losses during COVID closures. As this is a C-ID market, the crowds gravitating towards the booths that sold cute Asian themed items, east Asian to be exact. Food choices were also predominately Asian, including SE Asian. I am not complaining. Hehe. The food truck that caught my attention is YS Street Food Group selling their Sizzling Squid at $12. I also bought a Thai Iced Tea at $4. It's been at least 2 years since I had their well marinating tongue numbing mala squid. It's also very tender. I love it! Folks were buying 3 or more of them! Their Thai iced tea is quite good too, not too sweet and flavorful. Even though we just had a big dinner, we managed to consume more. LOL!

For what could have become a hectic food festive the people who organized the event did a great…read morejob. There were performances every 30 minutes and the groups that performed clearly practiced and put on a show. There were a lot of places to eat and the food walk that offered $3 menu options were awesome. I was so happy to be able to try places like Tai tung and kau kau bbq which were places on my list. There were a lot of vendors and stalls and I was super impressed by the dragon dances! One thing I will say is I think they would do a lot better if they put their informational booth more prominently as a lot of people asked me where to get the maps and food walk pamphlets I was looking at in passing. Overall will be back next year!

One of the most interesting, fun and beautiful cultures in the world. The performers were awesome…read more It was good to hear the Island Style music. And to see the dancers. You don't have to be Polynesian to attend, the festival is open to everyone. Good shows, good peeps, good grub... good times. The event is free to attend! The line for the shaved hawaiian ice is always long! Although I do wish they had more vendors and the lines aren't so long for the food. I'm always hoping to one day see Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson there lol or like Troy Polamalu... sweet! If you've ever been to Hawaii you know there are some very great quality Hawaii brands (such as Island Heritage) that you can only get over in Hawaii, or ship with steep shipping charges. I bought beautiful towels, lunch totes and jewelry. Hearing the Hawaiian music as you stroll into the festival and seeing all the dances really makes you feel like you're at the best luau in Honolulu. All in all a good time to be had!

It's a pretty small festival right in front of uwajimaya in downtown Renton. Theres performances…read morethroughout the day as well as a couple of booths such as tshirts, arts and crafts. For food, they have a variety of entree such as kalua pig with rice, they also have shave ice and malasada. I wish they have spam musubi. They also have macadons which are serving macarons, macaron ice cream and pinks push pop. It's my first time attending this and for some reason, I thought it would be bigger.

I didn't know what to expect, but I know I wanted to go to a chocolate festival as soon as I saw…read morethe poster. Parking: there's paid parking in the convention center but if you go on a Sunday, you can find street parking a little further out from the center. Event: there were a ton of free samples from all the vendors that were there. I don't think they advertise the samples enough. I feel like I didn't even go in expecting a ton of samples, but there were a lot so get ready to eat a ton of chocolate. Even though all the pieces were cut into small bites, after so many samples, you will definitely get your fill of chocolate. I like that they had variety from different countries and type types of chocolates and beverages as well. I appreciate it that there was a lot of different talks in different rooms on both days. You can almost spend the entire time listening to the talks. You get to learn a lot about chocolates, where it comes from, how to make truffles, and how to use chocolates. Lots of different topics for everyone. The price tag is pretty high, but I was able to find a Groupon so I'm very happy with that. As with any of these two day festivals, the first day is very crowded but you will be able to buy things that are not sold out. Sunday was super chill, but many things were already sold out . I will be back next time for sure!

First time attending this festival and there was definitely a lot that I enjoyed about it and some…read morethings I would do differently next time. The other reviews are from many years ago and mentioned issues with the location but it's in Bellevue now (not sure how long it's been there) but had no issues with the location. Obviously if you live in Seattle, that would be a different story but it was super convenient right next to the light rail station. SO much chocolate to taste. I appreciate the tables that have self service tastings where you can grab your own. The ones where you have to ask for them to hand you samples, is not efficient at all. Some of them were too crowded that you couldn't even see what was on the table because of others tasting and chit chatting with the employees. The presentations are interesting but they don't necessarily make enough samples for everyone so everyone on our side of the rows didn't get anything and had to watch the rest of the room taste their samples. So get a seat near the front, in the middle. They are an hour long so they do take up a good chunk of time if you do more than one if you are doing general admission (which is 11am-5pm). You can bring your own water bottles, there are refill stations, or your own snacks. Just know that your taste buds will be shot after all those samples and you will need a chocolate break for a while after the event. Bring a reusable bag for all the chocolate bars you'll end up buying!

Whoever thought that the already popular Fremont Sunday Street Market could get any better...? How…read moreabout throwing in a little beer tasting and 15+ food trucks!?! Yeah, that'll do it! I've been following the "Mobile Food Truck Rodeo" since 2011 and have been more than happy with their recent developments!! No longer charging for admission, additional food trucks and a better choice of venue(s). Food trucks started rolling in about 10:00am which was about the same time my anticipation started to rise! My friend and I visit the market on a regular but hearing that there were going to add 15+ food trucks to the mix made us that much more excited! The line up consisted of a few regulars, such as Snout & Co, Street Donuts, Veraci Pizza and Tandoozy with addition to Crisp Creperie, Xplosive, Jemil's Big Easy, Grilled Cheese Experience, Wiseguy Food Truck, I Love My GFF, Jerk Station, Buns, Curry Now, Raney Bros. BBQ, Bistro Box, Street Treats, Falafel Salam, Chicarepa and Los Agaves. The food trucks provided a delicious aroma which flowed throughout the market and almost made you forget that it was raining! The indoor market, including a few food trucks provided a little shelter but Tandoozy was sweet enough to provide two covered tables for our convenience! Having tried a little something from most of the food trucks, we found ourselves returning to the wonderful Tandoozy for their "Everything Naan"! My friend lloves it with "everything" which includes rice, chicken and chutney but I'd be satisfied with just a simple serving of their Naan drenched in their olive oil, garlic and cilantro sauce! YUM! A few trucks provided "specials" just for the event and we just had to try "The Bomb" from the Grilled Cheese Experience. "The Bomb" was a buttery grilled cheese sandwich stuffed with oxtail and mac n cheese. A little rich and heavy for our pallets but knew we were going to walk it off with a stroll through the market!

Traditionally, gatherings of food trucks are not held in December. That's why I was excited to hear…read moreabout The Winter Feast & Beer Festival. I am often at Fremont Sunday Market anywhere from one to three times a month. Having food trucks there is just an additional incentive for me. The weather today was much better than I expected. I was there for 3 hours or so and it didn't rain very hard. It was a little cold and the heaters that were added a few weeks ago were absolutely perfect for today. You could order your food from trucks, then wait under the heaters to keep warm. It was pretty sweet. The Red Door Ale House had tasters of beers. It was nice that we were able to take our food truck food inside to sit down, keep warm, watch the ballgame, and chill out. Unfortunately, the jacket I had my eye on was not there today but I did talk to the vendor and hope I can buy it next week. For those of you who know me, you know I'm into food trucks. Today, I visited Street Donuts for their first return to Seattle since September. They had a seasonal peppermint and chocolate flavor but my heart belongs to cinnamon and caramel. Fantastic as usual! The Bistro Box was in the house with Arancini (fried risotto balls). They were fried crisp and full of creamy mushroom risotto. At $6.00 for 2 balls - I was totally full! Jemil's Big Easy brought peach cobbler to the party and I was all in! I wasn't sure how an outdoor event in December would go but I think the event had a little something for everyone - food trucks, shopping, and beer. What more could you ask for?