8th Annual Suncoast Food And Wine Fest

I’ve gone to every one of the lakewood ranch rotary club’s wine festivals. I’ve had wonderful times at past ones. I have had amazing food and good wine. I’ve had food from restaurants that became favorites, I’ve had things that I’ve tried to make myself based upon the amazing things I’ve had at the wine festival. And even though most of the people poring the wine no nothing about it and are often just «sales» types from the distributors a good time is usually to be had.
But not this year.
Every year we talk this thing up and try to get friends to go. And finally this year we did have someone join us and that just adds to the disappointment. Because it was no where near as good as years past.
What was the problem? So much of the food was really really bad. IN years past there might be one or two things that were not to my liking, but this year things were just plain bad or awful at about ½ the restaurants present.
The first table I came to was run by the ritz. In years past, the ritz has had amazing things at the wine fest. This year they served up a scallop on a bed of shredded carrots and ginger. The scallop was like chewing on an eraser and the carrots were extremely salty. It was on covered in some strange goo. It was like they sent the busboy to come cook rather than anyone who actually works in the kitchen. I didn’t know you could destroy scallops in that way. I just don’t understand how this happened.
Seemed like the worse things were done to seafood at this festival. From the brutalized scallops put out by the ritz to scary cream sauce shrimp from blue water grill, to mutant fried shrimps from the riverhouse reef and grill swimming in either a spicy sauce or some garlic cream thing that clashed when mixed. The most flavorless seared tuna from lazy lobster with a gluey bisque were also low points, but at least edible.
But that doesn’t mean the meat things were all that good either. the tough thing that michael’s on east was passing off as a steak sandwich might have been good if there was actually horseradish in the horseradish sauce and the bread wasn’t as hard as a rock. And the so called «award» winning ribs from stingrays (ribs from a seafood place???) quickly went into the trash after one bite. I had never thrown out food at the wine festival! ANd this year I did twice! I had to keep apologizing to the friends who came with us it was so bad.
What happened to the food this year? The year the organizers rebranded it as «food» and «wine» and not just a wine festival? Was it the recession? OR was it some sort of curse?
I did have some good things, SOMA, Derek’s, Let’s eat (not even a restaurant!) Millie’s biscotti, and buddha belly donuts all had some good and maybe great things. But it seemed like the minority this year. The Keiser and MTI culinary programs put out some good things as well. Especially the chocolates from MTI. Some of MTI things had good intentions but suffered from the venue (the quail). But at least you felt like they were trying.
This year also had beer tasting, but standing in line to get a taste of beck’s or ST. Pauli girl was a farce. All the beers I saw were national brands that have been available in every grocery store in just about every city of the US for most of my adult life. What’s the point? Who hasn’t tried at least some of these? Why no micro brew? OR at least some of the more interesting national brands?
I“m so sad. I looked forward to this event every year. I tell people about it, how fun it is and how many neat things are there, and this year is seemed like a huge mistake. I don’t blame the organizers, I blame the restaurants that just didn’t take it seriously, didn’t think about what is realistic to do at such an event, or just tried to pass off wretched food that had no soul.
A comment from a friend kind of summed up the day, «we could have gone to the tasting at mozaic and had a better time, better food, better wine for less money.»
I’m sure I’ll go to next years, and I can hope for better, because there have been bad ones in the past, just not this bad. A truly low point.