Taiko drums, drag shows, karaoke competitions and more are coming to Asian Food Fest this weekend—alongside 150+ unique dishes that are certain to make your mouth water.
Now in its 15th year, Asian Food Fest has grown from a small, one-room event to the largest celebration of Asian food and culture in the region. The event is set for April 25 and 26 at Court Street Plaza downtown.
“Fifteen years ago, we set up five tables and hoped people would show up. They did—and they’ve never stopped. What began as a small act of community pride has grown into something that genuinely reflects the soul of Cincinnati,” said JP Leong, Asianati’s co-chair of Asian Food Fest.
According to Asianati founding member Lam Dang, early iterations of the event felt “more like a picnic” than a festival. Now, they’re expecting hundreds of thousands of people to descend on Court Street Plaza this Saturday and Sunday while it’s filled to the brim with Asian food and entertainment.
This year, more than a dozen countries are represented at the event, including Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Nepal, the Philippines, Syria, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam and more.
“Everyone knows the big ones. You’ve probably had Chinese and Thai food, for example. But we like to highlight the countries that aren’t at the forefront. When’s the last time you tried something from Cambodia?” Dang said. “You can tell a lot about the history of a country or even a continent just based on the food. For example, multiple Asian countries make curry, but they can all taste wildly different based on the spices used.”
Of the fifty-plus food vendors at the festival, seven of them are new.
Most notable are Duck Beijing House, the first restaurant of its kind in the Cincinnati area serving up traditional Chinese duck dishes, and Gimmebap, which sells ‘kimbap’—a Korean street food similar to hand-rolled sushi. Unlike sushi, however, kimbap is usually seasoned with sesame oil instead of vinegar and does not typically include any raw fish as a filling; often, the roll is filled with cooked proteins like bulgogi, ham or egg.
Other new vendors include Thai Table, Tenji Sushi, Stix-on Stone Bowl, Pacific Bowls and Lotus Thai & Sushi.
Veteran vendors will have all the staples that festival guests have come to expect, like boba tea, takoyaki, fried rice, samosas, chicken katsu, saag paneer, spring rolls and crab rangoons. Keep an eye out for Asian twists on classic Cincinnati dishes, too, like the Katsu Curry Coney at Fusaku.
Returning this year to the fest are ‘Secret Menu’ options hidden around the premises, where guests can try more traditional dishes like Sach mean ang (Cambodian grilled chicken), mochi donuts from Hawaii, or a deep-fried dough ball from South Asia known as panipuri. The ‘Secret Menu’ serves as a tribute to how some Asian restaurants have several off-menu items.
“If you ever go to an Asian restaurant, they usually have a second menu that’s in their language. And it’s got more traditional, home-cooked dishes that aren’t on the regular menu. We try to mimic that practice here,” Dang said. “It highlights the sort of mom-and-pop chefs who cook up classic dishes you won’t find anywhere at a restaurant.”
There’s plenty of entertainment to go along with the food, as well—so much so that Asianati has had to add a third stage to the festival just to fit all the performers into two days.
The “Eastern Eats and Vocal Beats” karaoke competition returns this year promising prizes to winners, and there are several groups performing the songs of their culture throughout the weekend, whether it’s traditional Hawaiian hula dance tunes or the K-pop songs currently storming the charts worldwide.
Several new entertainment options this year will be inside the Community Tent on the festival grounds. Calligraphy classes, origami lessons, and painting sessions are scattered throughout the weekend; on Saturday night, local manga/matcha cafe CinSei will host a reading lounge.
The year’s biggest addition, however, is the all-Asian drag show that will close out the festival on Saturday night. Led by drag performer Princess Shehzadi and featuring local queens Glitz and Bee Jade, the event will showcase the Asian LGBTQ+ community in the Queen City—especially Lotus Collective, our city’s queer AAPI & SWANA meetup group.
“As a kid, I always felt that I had to choose between my cultural representation and my queer representation,” Shehzadi said. “I think it’s important to showcase people that there is that intersection between queerness and being a person of color or an immigrant, and my hope for putting on this show is that someone will see me and know that they can celebrate all parts of themselves at the same time.”
For Dang, helping to put on the event is a way to pay tribute to his heritage.
“My parents are refugees from Vietnam. My dad sailed here on a ship, and it took him six months to get to the States … He didn’t know any English, so he worked day in, day out to learn English, to go through school, to bring my family here,” he said. “He survived, and he worked hard so we could thrive. So now that I’m thriving, I want to use that same energy that he did and help others thrive, and I do that by putting my time and effort into events like this.”
If you’re attending the festival this weekend, expect to see a lot of happy Cincinnatians.
“Every year, I love the energy that Asian Food Fest has. You will not see one person without a smile on their face. You’ll meet new people and make new friends just because everybody wants to talk about the food they’re eating,” Dang said. “I always say that when Asians try to get to know somebody, you bring them into your home, you cook them a meal, and you talk with them. Asian Food Fest is like our massive home. Expect amazing food, amazing vibes and an amazing time.”
