The sub-title for this post should read: We came, we saw, we peed our pants laughing at drunk people dancing. Seriously, best entertainment ever. I haven't been to Mainstrasse's Oktoberfest celebration in 10 years so I was pumped to check it out. I walk into all food-focused street festivals with a "game-on" kind of approach. I don't want to simply hang out and eat a little food and drink a little beer, I want to conquer the food booths. Oktoberfest this past weekend was no different. We were super-thorough and did a complete walk-through of the venue before we purchased one thing.
First things first...
We started out very German with Spaten Oktoberfest and a Bavarian pretzel with nacho cheese and an order of sauerkraut balls. Unfortunately they did not serve a traditional beer cheese but we pushed through. And perhaps spilled some of our own beer into the nacho cheese.
Next up was the feather fries. If you've never seen or heard of these you need to check them out. The picture will really speak for itself but it's basically a very thinly spiraled potato that is deep fried and then topped with nacho cheese sauce and ranch dressing, and I dipped mine in ketchup as well. It was good, but not for the faint of heart and the portion could easily serve 3 people.
The food was chosen in the order that we passed that particular food booth. Next was the home-made donut booth. I've heard stories about these donuts, apparently they're served at church festivals, I'm fairly certain they're made by the Knights of Columbus. They offer powdered sugar and cinnamon sugar and they only cost $1 each, steal!
Funny story. When I handed the girl my $5 bill for our order I accidentally dropped it in the tray of powdered sugar donuts. There was an older gentleman working the booth and he was transferring the donuts on the table to another area. He simply picked up my $5, handed it to the girl, and went about loading the donuts into the tray...including the one my money landed on. Like it was no big deal at all! I can't say which flavor was better, I think I'm partial to the cinnamon sugar for the added flavor.
We noticed on our loop around the food area that one of the barbecue booths was roasting a pig and would be turning it into pulled pork at 6pm.
After the donuts we grabbed another beer and an order of pulled pork and sat down for some people-watching and music.
It was time to digest for a bit so we found the German band and tons of opportunities for people watching. Some people were REALLY getting into the music. We did some more walking and ventured into the arts and crafts booths, saw some cool sidewalk chalk and got our picture taken in one of those wooden things with the faces cut out.
I'm sure I'm getting the sequence of events a little muddied here but at some point (after the pork, I think) we noticed the Mr. Softee truck. I can't remember the last time I had soft serve from Mr. Softee, this was meant to happen. They were out of chocolate soft serve, chocolate shell and sprinkles. Ugh. But I went with a vanilla soft serve and cherry shell and it was unbelievable!
After the ice cream we topped things off with a potato pancake from Izzy's and eventually ended the night with a volcano funnel cake. It was a regular funnel cake with a piece of cheese cake in the middle of it, topped with powdered sugar, strawberries and whipped cream. I'm not too proud to admit the volcano was a bad idea, bad.
After this we basically looked at each other in disgust and decided it was time to go. I got stuck getting into my car because I had to park so close to the car next to me so the lot could maximize on parking spaces. Almost lost a foot. I can't remember the last time I ate so much or laughed that hard. I can't even begin to compare it to Oktoberfest in Cincinnati because it is so completely different and unique and beautiful in its own way. It was a good time that I will not soon forget!