I probably wouldn’t have found out about the Taste of Troy if not for my cousin. Last weekend at the Lowry reunion, she came along, but her little sister didn’t. When asked where the little one was, her response was that they (her sis, mom, mom’s sis, etc) were planning for the Taste of Troy. Having attended Taste of Chicago for a number of years, I immediately understood the gist of the concept, which my cousin confirmed. Basically, you buy tickets, wander the downtown area (which is closed off to traffic) and get samples from local restaurants.

I, of course, talked the parental units into going. After all, Troy will soon by their home town. (They recently were part of a huge group of folks taking part in a TV advertisement who claimed that Troy is “where I live!” Alas, I’ve not gotten to see the ad. Neither has mom, though dad did.) Upon the advice of my ticket taker (not my cousin’s mom, though I soon saw her & her sister) I bought 10 tickets (for this taste, each ticket was $1).

The first booth I went to was for the Tin Roof, a restaurant I’d not been to yet. (They replaced Arang, which was Miami County’s oldest – and for the longest time only – Japanese restaurant. I hadn’t gone yet due to solidarity for the loss of Arang.) I went with three 1-ticket tastes from them – reuben, pair of sides (cole slaw, cheesy potatoes), and peach cobbler. All three were quite yummy. I shall have to head there one of these days.

A further three tickets was spent at La Piazza’s booth. They had fried calamari (with a nice marinara sauce) and a spicy ravioli. It was practically a meal itself. And very yummy. I hadn’t had calamari from La Piazza before, but I shall have to get it again. I munched on it while waiting in line for a 1-ticket chicken flauta from La Fiesta. This, too, was very tasty. It was topped in melted cheese and a red sauce. Another ticket was spent on a pair of chocolate chip cookies from a place whose name escapes me for the time being. (Bummer – the point was to get names of places to try.) I also spun a wheel at The Caroline’s booth and won a $5 gift card to their restaurant. Nice!

Taste of Troy – not as big as Taste of Chicago

The Taste of Troy is sponsored by the downtown Troy association and the Troy arts association, so unlike Taste of Chicago, there were quite a few arts & crafts booths around the “square.” (Although it’s always called the square, in the dead center is a roundabout or rotary. Rather circular for a square, if you ask me.) While we were grazing and/or shopping, we met up with quite a few folks. Former students, former classmates, neighbors, the aforementioned family members, etc. It was rather fun.

The center of the round square – closest I’ve ever been. It is usually surrounded by cars in the roundabout.

Mom and dad decided to try a flight of wines inside La Piazza. They had 3 wines for 3 tickets. They all smelled like wine to me, and tasted like wine, so I didn’t care much for them. One of ’em dad found especially nasty, but thankfully the pinot noir was good enough to take the taste away. While we were sitting outside on the patio at La Piazza, we listened to Rick Fannin singing and playing guitar. He’s a friend of one of my co-workers and we’d seen him perform before. It was quite pleasant.

Rick Fannin plays at Taste of Troy

We still had some tickets left, so we headed to Sakai’s booth. This is the newer Japanese restaurant in Troy. I got shrimp shumai (yum) for my last 2 tickets. Dad got the katsu curry and mom got the sushi sampler. We then sat at the stage to listen to Rick finish his gig. (It was fun to see two of my former students running the sound for the event.)

Mom still had 1 ticket left, so she let me have it to get a strawberry smoothie from the Boston Stoker booth. Really good deal for a buck – it was a nice large (and tasty) smoothie. By the time I finally got mine (they were backed up), mom and dad were just about to be seated on the patio of The Caroline for the beer flight. They got to try 5 beers for $5. Alas, they only cared for 2 of the 5, and one of those he liked, dad had tried before. But the other liked one, dad wrote down in his notebook (well, calendar) to try again.

We were pretty much done, but there were still two tickets of dad’s to be spent. Mother and I decided he should spend them on cookies from The Bakehouse. I picked out peanut butter w/ chocolate chunks and mom got raisin oatmeal. The lady running the booth felt sorry for dad (they were his tickets, remember) so she gave him a raisin oatmeal cookie too. 🙂

I drove us to Lowes so mom could buy the rest of the tile that’s needed for their new bathroom (in their new house) and she ordered the blinds for the windows. By the time we were done there, she figured she was good to drive and so took me home. They then headed back to the Lake.

I pottered about in the house for awhile, but then when it got closer to 7:30, I headed off to O’Brian’s pub to hang out with my coworkers and listen to Rick Fannin perform again. I ordered the fish & chips, which I’d gotten the last time I was there. Very nice fish & chips (though the chips are potato “coins” that are fried, rather than fry-shaped things). I started with an amaretto sour, too, but finished with water. During Rick’s first break, I ordered the Bailey’s Irish Cream cheesecake. The pub’s cook bakes them herself and I got to tell her just how yummy it was. Rick finished a bit before midnight, so it was after midnight that I returned home.

Rick Fannin plays at O’Brian’s Pub in Troy.

Today was a semi-productive day. Finished my laundry, got some needed supplies from Kroger and Meijer, had lunch at Tokyo Peking. Tomorrow, back to work! 🙂