Garlic Fest

Just the festival name evokes an amazing sensory experience… wafting garlic smell and pungent tastes! We went to the first one and were underwhelmed so we decided to give the fourth one another shot.
The number of vendors has become actually worthy of a street festival; however, don’t expect a huge fest. Almost all of the 2^nd street restaurants were present minus AP (All Purpose). Food offerings were diverse; however, I think we did NOT pick the best options.
We started with a green garlic bloody mary from Braise. It had great promise but didn’t deliver. It had a very offputting taste that made it barely edible. Next we opted to share the black garlic arancini with wild mushrooms from Black Sheep. The texture was way off and the flavors did not overwhelm. We had 3 tickets left so finally went for the fresh spring roll. I don’t know how this item qualified for a «garlic» item because it was over spiced with fresh jalapenos.
They had some cute garlic games with putting garlic, garlic toss and garlic ladder ball. It wasn’t clearly marked but if you succeeded you got free tickets to enter into drawings for free restaurant gift certificates.
I don’t like «ticket» events so that detracted. Lines were minimal and the venue was about two blocks long. Eventually I can see this event growing much bigger but until then I think I will wait another couple of years for the next one.

This was my 1^st time attending Garlic Fest, and I was bummed about the design of the festival. Lots of great restaurants with interesting, unique foods and drinks to try. The smell was fantastic.
Unfortunately, the portion sizes were not at all uniform nor were the prices. It was $ 3 for a full slice of Transfer pizza, but then $ 2 for 4 small gnocchi… that doesn’t make sense to me. If the idea is for people to sample lots of great food, then all the samples should be $ 1 for a small, uniform bite (WMSE’s chili cookoff knows how to do it). Perhaps I’ve misunderstood the point of Garlic Fest, but then the marketing should be clearer.
The voting was also confusing. I saw people voting, and a sign that there would be a raffle, but I was not given a ballot with the tickets I purchased nor any information about the fact that I should vote.
The items I tried were mostly really good (except the fresh spring roll). There were some cool merchandise stands, like Orchard Street Apparel, and a strong showing of local restaurants. If the format were tweaked, this could be a pretty great festival.

My husband and I went to Garlic Fest last year to check it out. It was small and was just on W Washington St (I believe). We didn’t eat any food but it was cool because there was a garlic eating contest.
This year, we wandered down with the full intention of eating some food. There were a lot of restaurants and from what I had, it was delicious.
Morel had a beef short rib, ramp kimchi & garlic custard. It was so delicious — the beef short rib was so tender… it just melted in your mouth. The ramp kimchi was pretty good and it was my first time having it.
Movida had a garlic shrimp: guindella peppers, Rosemary, thyme, white wine & butter sauce. I usually don’t like shrimp but this was yummy. The sauce just had a slight kick I wish I had more bread to soak up the sauce.
Meraki had a garlic spring roll — it was okay. There wasn’t a whole lot of stuff in the spring roll. The dipping sauce was super spicy… yikes!
Transfer had a garlic pizza — there were 3 different toppings that you could pick from. It was good and I shoveled it down because it was so yummy.
My husband bad the chicken tiki masala from Café India as well as the garlic ice cream from Purple Door. He also had the gnocchi with garlic butter sauce from Blue Jacket. I tried the gnocchi and I don’t know if I’m a fan of gnocchi to begin with.
There were stands with different vendors — it was fun to see the different crafts and whatnot that they were selling. It was all cool and I wish I could have bought all the stuff they were selling.
I would definitely come back to Garlic Fest.