Oak, Alex, and I went to the Taste of Durham festival last weekend. This year, it was in an office park in Research Triangle Park, which was a little weird. Then, a number of restaurants there were actually from Morrisville (Victoria’s Sweets, Charlie’s Cajun Cafe, Texas Roadhouse, Carmen’s Cuban Cafe..). Apparently the new location change, instead of the old spot in downtown Durham, offered more space to the festival goers but apparently pissed off some of the downtown Durham restaurants that, as a result, didn’t show this year. Needless to say the Chowhounds weren’t happy about all the chain restaurants that were there.
We still had a good time. Last year we didn’t visit the beer or wine tents at all, but we participated this year (maybe since the food selection was a little meager…). Plus, the prices in the tasting tents were more reasonable than what you’d buy for the same amount of money outside the tent. I had like 5 tastes of a nice ice cold Prosecco. (Did I mention it was also 90 degrees out?). Besides the booze, we tasted ‘Durham’s best pound cake’ (we decided it wasn’t), a delicious hazelnut mousee dessert from Victoria’s sweets, some baby back ribs from Texas Roadhouse, fresh bruchetta, a cuban potato ball with meat filling — no idea what it was called except ‘tasty’, some great bread pudding… hmm, it seems 3/4 of what we had was desserts! I took some pictures, so maybe I’ll remember other items we had when I see those again!!! 
The “Mardi gras parade” was there again this year. They were much better than the random scrap exchange marching band that showed up at the Farmer’s market grand opening. LOL. It was a good time but we hope to see more food vendors next year. Hopefully some of the Durham favorites will show up again – or they might have to change the title to “Taste of Morrisville!”
