This weekend, we’re celebrating the Italian culture in Akron at the Italian-American festival. This is a 3-day event with plenty of food, fun and entertainment at the Lock 3 stage. This is a family friendly event where the younger visitors can have fun with bouncy inflatables and train rides.
There was a large variety of Italian food vendors sharing their good eats with the festival attendees.
I also saw several hard merchandise tents selling apparel, toys and accessories.
The organizers of the festival were also offering visitors raffle tickets to win a trip to Italy!
Today, my food adventure started with a meal of freshly grilled chicken kebabs. For $12, I was served a huge stick of chicken (slathered with barbecue sauce) with a side of yellow rice.
The chicken itself had good flavor and was tender and moist.
In my opinion, it would’ve been better if they did not pour on the sauce after it was taken off the grill and I tried to remove as much as possible as I was eating it. Unfortunately, the rice was under-cooked and bland.
There were also several concession stands selling pasta, meatballs, garlic bread, stromboli, bread bowls, italian sausage sandwiches, lasagna and of course, pizza.
In addition, there were a few offerings of salads and italian meat sandwiches in the cold foods category.
There was also a roasted corn vendor at the festival, which I patronized. They roast whole corn-on-the-cob in bulk and peel the husk back to dip in melted butter before serving. The end product was just delicious well-cooked maize, all for $3 each.
To quench their thirst on a hot summer’s day, I spotted attendees holding stainless steel mugs and sipping from them while they were walking around.
Come to find out, a vendor called Old Texas Soda Co. was selling those mugs and offering free refills when they ran empty. Uniquely, this stand offered seven different flavors of soda to choose from, which I thought was smart.
There was a food truck serving a small variety of coffee drinks, and few obligatory freshly- squeezed lemonade stands plus two beer stations for the adults who enjoy them.
Certainly there was no shortage of dessert offerings at the festival for those with a sweet tooth. I capped off my meal with something new (to me) called a Funnel Cake Sundae.
I found this concession stand selling this concoction in four flavors – chocolate, strawberry, caramel and raspberry. I requested my funnel cake be extra crispy and was very pleased that the nice “fry guy” obliged and did such a good job at it.
This vendor also offered deep fried cheese cake bites, deep fried oreos and nutter butters, and deep fried pickle chips.
The final product after assembly turned out to be quite beautiful (as pictured) and I was just as impressed with the taste.
To be truthful, I ordered the sundae because I thought it was a better value than just a regular funnel cake with powered sugar. A regular funnel cake cost $6 while this interesting dessert that I ate was only $5, and it was something new to experience.
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