Bite of Oregon (Waterfront Park)

Any kind of festival in Waterfront Park usually sounds like a good time to me. Especially when it involves food (go figure!). So the Bite of Oregon always draws me in, even though my past experiences haven't been "Oh my gosh I had the BEST time at the Bite this weekend!", but more like "Yeah, the Bite was okay."

This year was no exception. I'm not sure why I go and expect to have really good food, when the restaurants there include Burgerville and Mo's. Not that there's anything wrong with Burgerville. It's just that paying $7 to get in the gates and then another $7 or $8 for food I can get anywhere in Portland - it's just not the greatest deal, you know? And Mo's. I won't even go there.

I ended up eating at a barbeque place. Jackie's BBQ. Looked good and the line was long, so I figured it must be tasty. I ordered the 4 rib dinner. "Where is your restaurant at?" I wanted to make sure I knew, in case the food was really good and I wanted some when this giant food festival wasn't going on. "Oh we don't have one. We only do this event every year." I just assumed that all the food places there also had a restaurant. Because why would it be called the Bite of Oregon if it was really just a bite of carnival vendors? Huh. I'll have to think about that one. The food was eh okay, for $12:

The ribs were bland until I squirted some extra sauce on them - then they were pretty good, but the sauce was cold, so it kind of made the ribs cold. And the corn was okay. I mean it's hard to mess up corn on the cob. But it wasn't warm either, and they had poured a mess of melted butter on it. Maybe the fact that it wasn't from a real restaurant kind of bugged me and tainted my perspective.

So if I had never been to Oregon before and I came to the Bite of Oregon to see what this great state had to offer and I happened to eat at Mo's or Greek Cusina, or even Burgerville - I would think to myself: "You should open up a restaurant and show these people what a REAL bite is." Then I would realize that I have no money and no sugar daddy and would go back to Arkansas or wherever I was from and make myself some good mashed potatoes and barbeque chicken and be satisfied that my family thinks I am an awesome cook, so who cares. Yeah. Exactly. I can cook for them and show them what good food is, just in case they ever come to Oregon and forget.

Anyway.

After we ate, we headed over to see the Nu Shooz Orchestra, which Kristin was excited to see, since they were one of her favorites from the 80s. I have to admit that although their songs sounded vaguely familiar, I don't really remember them. They were entertaining enough though as were the one or two groupies who were dancing.

As we walked along the waterfront over to the streetcar, the fireworks started going off. I love fireworks on the river. I think these were even better than the ones on the Fourth at the Blues Festival. There was a little family sitting on one of the benches, their smiles as bright as the fireworks as the parents pointed to the sky, as thrilled as their kids. Oh it made me happy. No professional photogs with me this time, but even my little camera phone caught the brightness.