Well, we made it. After eating 48 dishes as part of day 1 of judging Taste of Cincinnati, I somehow had the mental and physical capacity to come back and try 14 more on day 2. “How are you back here?” asked the same employee who stood at the front of the room and watched me destroy plate after plate throughout four categories of judging on Tuesday. My response was succinct: “Honestly, I have no idea.”
If you haven’t read my personal picks from day 1 on Tuesday, you can do so by clicking here. The second day of judging, which took place on Wednesday morning, was entirely food truck-focused, and took place outdoors at Court Street Plaza.
Since there were a ridiculous number of food trucks and no one person could be reasonably expected to try every single item on the list—so they tell me, anyway—they split the judges on day 2 into multiple groups. As part of judging in group B, I tried four appetizers, five entrées, and five desserts. Here were my favorites from each category.
Snacks & Bites Category (appetizers)
I was tasked with trying Lamb Fries from Wicked Hickory, a sort of sweet-and-sour chicken wing from Buffalo’s Best (imagine my surprise when it wasn’t buffalo sauce), some fries from Fifty West Brewing, and some Street Corn Gyoza from Fusako.
The Fifty West fries were quite literally just regular french fries (although done well!), and the Lamb Fries and chicken wings were good, but the Street Corn Gyoza ran away with my vote. If you read my Asian Food Fest column, you probably saw me praise Fusako’s offerings at that event as some of my favorites. No surprise they brought their A-game to the biggest festival of the year, too.
Craveable Mains (entrées)
Here, I tried Siomai Rice from Lasang Pinoy Filipino Eats, a dish of braised oxtail over smoky jollof rice from Mama Afrique, a Tuscan Chicken macaroni & cheese from MamaBear’s Mac, a fritada from Mis Sabores, and a Fish Nibbler—basically just fish & chips—from Off The Hook Seafood.
At this point, I realized if I kept going, I’d probably end up having to throw away several perfectly good plates of food. So I called up my best friend on his lunch break and told him to scurry on over to Court Street to eat my leftovers. (For objectivity’s sake, I scored each dish first before handing it over. Can’t let outside opinions cloud my judgment, after all.)
I loved the Siomai rice from Lasang Pinoy, although I didn’t find it as tasty as their Sisig rice. The Fish Nibbler was exactly how I expect good fish & chips to taste. MamaBear’s Tuscan Chicken Mac was good, but the flashy appearance teased something greater; for some color commentary, my friend took a bite and said “It’s good. I just feel like I’ve had this a hundred times but better.”
But the runaway winner of this category and, really, all of day 2 was the braised oxtail over smoky jollof rice from Mama Afrique. My friend had never tried oxtail until today; after trading a few bites back and forth, he asked if he could finish the entire thing. Enough said.
Sweets & Treats (desserts)
For my final category of the day, I tried a chocolate-vanilla ice cream sandwich from Dreamy’s Ice Cream, a pineapple rum beignet from Maw Maw’s Creole Kitchen, a ‘Fiona & Fritz’ special from Little Trolley Donuts, a cheesecake-stuffed banana pudding cookie from Eliza Jane’s Mobile BakeShop, and the ‘Strawberry Dream Bowl’ from Davis Cookie Collection.
Personally, I didn’t care for the Strawberry Dream Bowl—although it seems my fellow judges disagreed, as the item won a CinGourmand award. The cheesecake-stuffed cookie was decent, and the ice cream sandwich was not so different from any other ice cream sandwich I’ve ever had (that didn’t make it any less delicious, though).
The pineapple-rum beignet was great, even as somebody that normally shies away from pineapple-flavored items, but my clear favorite in this category was the ‘Fiona & Fritz’ donut special from Little Trolley Donuts. Peanut butter and chocolate layered on top of mini donuts, with Reese’s pieces and whipped cream as a garnish? Yeah, that’s hard to beat.
