Here we go again for the 3rd year ... a brand new set of tastes for 2018 ...
here's the FIRST of FIFTY tastes of FLORIDA
(coming to you on sequential Thursdays. All. Year. Long.)!
Establishment: Chinese Lantern Festival
Location: Lauderhill
Meal: Dinner
Drink: Coca-Cola bottle
Appetizer: Egg Roll
Main: Combo Platter
(chicken on a stick served with noodles and shrimp rice)
Side(s): n/a
Dessert: Funnel Cake
Server: Chan (from Chan's Chicken on a Stick!)
Website: https://www.chineselanternfestival.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1406907156054273/
In the land of SoFlo, where it's pretty much always summer, there's *almost* always an opportunity to go find a festival. Tonight, as per the FB event description, our destination was "a new and spectacular family friendly event ... the Chinese Lantern Festival produced by Hanart Culture ... a totally immersive experience among Chinese culture, multi-hued 'The Wild' animal lantern displays, live entertainment, authentic Chinese food, hand-made gifts by Chinese craftspeople, and more." As for how the first (but not the last) festival of the year fared in the Troy-score category, see below:
AMBIANCE: 9/10 (to be fair, the festival is mostly about the festival and not exactly a "foodie" event ... but you can't quite beat eating at a picnic table in a pavilion where an authentic ancient Chinese shadow puppet show is being performed nearby ... this, after ambling around the lake on a path filled with the brightest of lit-up cloth covered wire creatures [the last picture below doesn't quite capture the beauty but might give a sense of the scope of it] ... the point lost is because of the cost of the activity, just a little too expensive for what was experienced [thankfully, Groupon helped with that])
FOOD: 7/10 (as you can hopefully see from the main photo, this wasn't some kebob of chicken on that stick -- it was a great big piece of Chinese chicken fresh off the grill with a good charred taste to compliment the light sauce ... the noodles were super saucy [although it reminded me vaguely of a lighter Thai peanut sauce] and the vegetables mixed in were plump and juicy ... that being said, there is a point lost for the shrimp that were more texture than flavor when it came to the rice, another point lost for excessive noodle juice that mixed in with everything else on the plate and a final point lost for a funnel cake that should have stayed in the fryer for another minute or two)
SERVICE: 5/10 (since it was a festival, there wasn't exactly much interaction with employees at either stand ... and that's understandable ... but what wasn't understandable was the fact that half of the vendors were a no-show, as seen in the second to last photo in this set ... so since we only had half the choices from which to select a meal, we can only provide half the points in this category)
BACON: 5/10 (with a limited menu [as explained] plus the fact that bacon isn't necessarily a typical ingredient in Chinese cuisine, we'll award half the points solely out of cultural sensitivities [although, let me tell you, I could be a millionaire if I could figure out how to make some bacon flavored funnel cake batter ...])
BONUS: 9/10 (+3 for an egg roll that was not overstuffed with cabbage and therefore tasted great [and I normally don't eat them], +3 for the all the beautiful displays and the artistic performances that were at the core of the festival in the first place and +3 for offering funnel cakes in January)
TroyScore: 35 out of 50 -- aka 70, a C
