Sunday, August 19, 2007

The Rainier Valley Bite bit

Our weekend was wide open and the getting-towards-the-end-of-summer events were piling up: Should we hit the KEXP barbecue or stay closer to home and head to Columbia City for the Ranier Valley Bite? We decided to be good locals and went to the Bite.

It started at noon and was supposed to run until 2:30, so when we got there at 1pm we were not expecting this:


Empty booths. Booths that had run out of food.

This is the first year of the bite, so maybe whoever organized this thing thought nobody'd show up. But empty stalls at 1pm? There were only 10 food stalls to begin with, so you can't really afford to lose any of them. Unfortunately, it wasn't just one. Roy's BBQ? Completely out of food. Kallaloo? Out of jerk chicken, but you can have red beans and rice (blah). And while we're at it, where's the La Medusa tent? Or Geraldine's? Or Jones BBQ?

Salima was serving chicken satay which had an unpleasantly stringy lemongrass marinade on it.

Tagla cafe served a sampler of their vegetarian Ethiopian fare.

Neither dish made me excited to visit these restaurants, but hell, they get credit for HAVING FOOD! Seeing empty stalls was a bummer. What I can't figure out is why Columbia City Bakery couldn't just whip up a bunch of their yummy gougeres and sell those.

The best part of the event was the great live jazz.

And the people watching.



We attempted to salvage the trip to Columbia City with an afternoon drink outside at Tutta Bella.

Here's hoping next year's Bite is better, but I won't be holding my breath.
[where: 98118]

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What were those supposed culinary "executives" thinking? A reasonablby bright chipmunk could have concocted a better plan. I'm glad we didn't go, it would have been a major bummer.