Went to a ribfest with my brother on the long holiday weekend. I’ve heard about these things before, but this was the first time I actually ever went to one. You always read in menus or hear in advertisements about some restaurant’s award winning ribs. Well, ribfests are where these restaurants win those awards.
When we first got there, we didn’t see any ribs!
There were lots of vendors, selling everything from T-shirts with funny catch-phrases, to scented oils to make your home smell nice and fresh, to candy and everything else.
Then there was the midway, with lots of rides – just like at the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE).
Finally after passing all of this, we got to the rib’s section of ribfest. There were several restaurants all in a row, all grilling their ribs. They were all serving up ribs, chicken, baked beans and cole slaw. And all of them were charging exactly the same amount, to eliminate any potential for competition from the crowd. The real competition they were here for was to win best ribs of the ribfest.
It was actually hard to tell the names of who was who. All of the “ribbers” had huge signs over their booths, proudly displaying all their banners from all the other ribfests they had won. Somewhere, amidst all of those banners was their actual sign – but it was so buried in their other promotional stuff, most of the time I didn’t know the names of the places I was eating ribs from.
We first walked the ribbers row – to see and smell all those glorious ribs. Every one had their own “secret” sauce – which was also available for purchase from each vendor.
My brother and I chose two different vendors to try, we each got half a rack and compared ‘em. They were good – but so many more to try. We did the same thing for a couple of more vendors. But ribs are very filling and expensive, we couldn’t possibly try all the vendors.
But we had a lot of fun trying the three vendors we did manage to get too – ended up costing us over $30 each (and all we got were ribs) and we each ate a rack and a half of ribs.
But it was worth all the sticky fingers we had. They even had hand washing stations set up in the park – I guess they know you can’t enjoy ribs without making a mess. But taking that mess home is another thing.
I’d definitely go back to ribfest next summer – it was well worth the gooeiness and the full stomach. Maybe next year I’ll even make it to the beer tent before getting too messy.
When we first got there, we didn’t see any ribs!
There were lots of vendors, selling everything from T-shirts with funny catch-phrases, to scented oils to make your home smell nice and fresh, to candy and everything else.
Then there was the midway, with lots of rides – just like at the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE).
Finally after passing all of this, we got to the rib’s section of ribfest. There were several restaurants all in a row, all grilling their ribs. They were all serving up ribs, chicken, baked beans and cole slaw. And all of them were charging exactly the same amount, to eliminate any potential for competition from the crowd. The real competition they were here for was to win best ribs of the ribfest.
It was actually hard to tell the names of who was who. All of the “ribbers” had huge signs over their booths, proudly displaying all their banners from all the other ribfests they had won. Somewhere, amidst all of those banners was their actual sign – but it was so buried in their other promotional stuff, most of the time I didn’t know the names of the places I was eating ribs from.
We first walked the ribbers row – to see and smell all those glorious ribs. Every one had their own “secret” sauce – which was also available for purchase from each vendor.
My brother and I chose two different vendors to try, we each got half a rack and compared ‘em. They were good – but so many more to try. We did the same thing for a couple of more vendors. But ribs are very filling and expensive, we couldn’t possibly try all the vendors.
But we had a lot of fun trying the three vendors we did manage to get too – ended up costing us over $30 each (and all we got were ribs) and we each ate a rack and a half of ribs.
But it was worth all the sticky fingers we had. They even had hand washing stations set up in the park – I guess they know you can’t enjoy ribs without making a mess. But taking that mess home is another thing.
I’d definitely go back to ribfest next summer – it was well worth the gooeiness and the full stomach. Maybe next year I’ll even make it to the beer tent before getting too messy.
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