Tag: Fair Szn

I made sure to do some traveling of my own while James was in Lake George for a bachelor party…still trying to get him to “write” his own post about that…all I know is “car show, party bus, phone got stolen”. Oh well. Back to the things I do know about – my weekend adventures!

After the Milford Oyster Festival didn’t pan out, I was super excited to go to the Norwalk Oyster Festival. I went with my parents every year when I was a kid and I remember listening to live music next to the water, riding a school bus to get to the fairgrounds, making (and then promptly dropping) sand art, and of course THE FOOD! 

I was really excited to go back and eat all the things and even more excited that I was able to find three friends to go with – Lexy, Lauren, and Caitlin. I met Lexy when she was living in Danbury but she has since moved to Norwalk. I’ve known Lauren since middle school – she lived in NF and we did theater together and then we both wound up going to RIT AND joining the same sorority! Caitlin actually lives on Long Island but Lauren and I know her from RIT/our sorority as well and she came to visit for the day. There were a few different bus routes to get to the festival – Lexy and I met in one lot and left from there and Lauren and Caitlin took a different bus in. 

The festival was set up a lot different that I remembered – the biggest thing is that there were less trees than I remember. I mean, the festival takes place at a park but I remember sitting under the trees to eat my food when I was younger and now there were no trees. And it was really hot! Also there used to be a one or two big tents that would house craft exhibits and vendors and this year the vendors were set up in a row but all in separate little (like pop up) tents. But! There was still sand art and music and carnival rides and games. 

The four of us ate and drank our way around the festival. There were TONS of food and drink tents so we obviously couldn’t visit them all but here were some of our favorites:

• I had a lobster roll the moment I walked in the gate.
• We had oysters! There was one big tent that had all sorts of great seafood and they literally had to have a separate line for oysters because they were so popular. 
• The girls got these GIANT soft pretzels. I’m not a big fan so I didn’t get one but I was impressed by the size.
• Pierogies! I wish we had gone by this stand earlier in the day because they ran out of most of their flavors by the end but we got sweet potato pierogies with caramelized onions. They were SO GOOD. I seriously need to try making my own pierogies.
• Doughnuts…there was this little doughnut tent near the gate and Lexy was super psyched to end the day by getting doughnuts…and they weren’t good. She got frosted ones and they had like a drizzle of frosting. Sad.
• There were several BBQ tents INCLUDING Dinosaur BBQ (a favorite restaurant from my time in Rochester that now has a Stamford location). Lexy got some mac and cheese while I shoved the lobster roll down my throat.
• There was a TOTS truck and as I sit at my desk typing this right before my lunch break, I’m really regretting not getting those tots.
• There was also a waffle truck and I’m kind of okay with not getting waffles because I’m not the biggest sweets person but I think the other girls would probably repeat my previous point but swap out tots for waffles
• There was a beer garden tent featuring local craft beers. Bull and Barrel had their blueberry beer available!
• Spiked Seltzer is originally from Connecticut so they had a truck to give people samples of their new recipes. Lexy and I have lots of thoughts on the new version of Spiked Seltzer but they have a “plain” flavor and it was actually really good! Of course, since then I haven’t been able to find it anywhere but that sample sure was good!
• There’s a whiskey distillery that opened up in Norwalk semi-recently and they had samples of their whiskeys and some mixed drinks that were really good! We want to plan a trip to visit during the winter.

And in between all the eating and drinking, we visited the vendor tents:

• I found a very appropriate birthday present for Grace!
• Caitlin bought jewelry – while the jewelry maker’s little brother (like an actual child, maybe nine years old) tried to convince Lexy to be his girlfriend.
• Lexy and I wanted everything at the 203 tent but…poor (aka I’d rather eat food than buy ANOTHER sweatshirt).
• Lauren and Caitlin bought these really fun homemade greeting cards.
• There was a tent selling Turkish towels that folded into a backpack that looked cool!

So after spending most of our day EATING, we left the fairgrounds because we were hungry and wanted “real food”. We walked to this little street that had a TON of restaurants and a lot had special Sunday deals. We chose an Italian place called Il Posto where they had dinner specials and half priced bottles of wine. The four of us split a bottle of wine. Lauren and Caitlin split an appetizer and then left when Lauren’s boyfriend (and dog!) came to pick them up. Lexy and I got pasta dishes that were delicious…I wound up with leftovers to bring for lunch the next day.

Some upcoming events – Lexy and I will be visiting the Big E at the end of the month (yay another day of eating!). Lauren and Nick are moving into a different house in Norwalk at the end of the month so they’ll be having a housewarming party later this fall! And for real…we’re going to that distillery!

Until our next adventure!