Garlic and Ginger Festival

Any type of festival, either food-centric or at which I can find food, is a food blogger's dream. We've been to the Greek Festival 3 times, a Chocolate Festival, one dedicated to SPAM - Spam Jam - and so on. Recently I learned that Honolulu has a Garlic and Ginger Festival and I immediately marked my calendar! 

Naturally I was more concerned with the garlic, but I did bring my favorite ginger along for the ride.

The festival, which was on a Thursday evening, was low key and not too crowded. Bryce enjoyed (but didn't share) the braised shortrib with fried garlic and garlic mashed potatoes.

My choice was this beef, pork, and garlic sandwich with arugula and garlic vinaigrette on a baguette. Can you see the entire roasted garlic cloves in there?! Magical. 

Thanks to another friend, one of those strips of roasted garlic candied bacon became my very own! It was the best thing I ate all night. Side note: Each scrip was $1.00, so those 3 pieces of bacon cost $4.00! Holy markup.

The problem with festivals such as these is that you can't possibly try everything because you'd explode from fullness. I passed on the ginger cotton candy...

...so that I'd have room for the garlic ice cream!

Garlic ice cream is something that I've always wanted to try and it was much more odd than I even could have imagined. The garlic keeps its warm, roasty flavor and that, contrasted with the chill of the ice cream, makes it a very confusing thing to eat! Your taste buds can't distinguish between the hot flavor and cold temperature and the combination of the savory garlic and sweet, creamy ice cream don't mix in a pleasurable way. It's something I'm glad I tried but will not willingly indulge in again :)

So you've heard about the garlic and ginger, the good and the bad. Now it's time for the ugly. Why folks bring dogs to these food focused events continues to equally bewilder and disgust me. Why anyone would do this to their poor dog doesn't even begin to make sense! Please note the stranger pointing at the dog and its human's matching pants.

Garlic, ginger, and hot pink poodles!?