Taste of Tacoma: not so sweet

I'm a little ticked at Tacoma. Just a little.

Yesterday completed the Taste of Tacoma, an annual three-day event held at Point Defiance Park. It's basically a food fest with vendors from area restaurants paired with businesses and artists promoting or selling their wares.

There are bands on scattered stages, a couple beer gardens, a comedy tent, the wine and roses garden where for a price you can sample five wines and keep the glass or simply listen to the light jazz while strolling and enjoying the beauty of the roses.

There's no entrance fee and you can spend the entire day. The event always draws the crowds, especially on luscious days like yesterday. In case you hadn't heard, we are a severely sun-deprived bunch in the Pacific Northwest so when Mr. Sol makes an appearance, we flock like dehydrated desert survivors crawling toward the water.

Years ago, before my time here, Taste of Tacoma was evidently just that: an event where visitors could sample from the vast array of vendors for a few bucks a pop.

My the times have changed. Now there's hardly a sample to be found. Most plates run 6 or 7 bucks. Some constitute meals (namely those loaded with Asian noodles). Most are ridiculously overpriced for the quantity and quality. Understandably, you don't expect fine fare at the faire, but to my thinking let the prices reflect that.

I intentionally saved my appetite for the event. Mistake. My friend and I strolled surveying the booths for an hour for a dish that was affordable (especially to the unemployed) and healthful. I examined the contents of plates as diners pulled away from booths, occasionally stopping them to inquire what they were eating. I needed a snack, not an entire meal.

The most appetizing was the alligator on a stick. So I asked the price: $7. For that, they should be haulin' tail, not munching on six fried pieces skewered on a stick. A crab cake, which also appealed, was 5 bucks. One crab cake.

That's how it was up and down the corridor. My poor little body was aching for food. I finally gave up and told my friend "let's go find a place to sit down and listen to music." She was wanting a snack though too so bought two small plates and we shared a stick of yakitori chicken and four little eggrolls. Hardly a meal for $6; still, it was better than starving and kind of her (as the employed one) to pick up the tab.

My beef with the Taste of Tacoma is that it is no longer that, certainly not in any affordable sense. In fact, I was a little surprised and disappointed at the prevailing high prices in these times of severe hardship and unemployment. I understand that it's an opportunity for restaurants to introduce their foods to the public and that they've got costs to cover and profits to realize. By the three-day turnout, I'm sure they do very well.

Nonetheless, I can't help feeling changes are in order. I'd like to see the Taste of Tacoma return to its grassy 'n' gritty roots by offering tastes at half the prices of recent years. That opportunistic approach that now marks the Taste of Tacoma leaves a bad taste in my mouth and a lump in my throat.

Signed,
WB, an ardent Tacoman