Here in my hometown of Seattle, Washington, we have an event every July called “The Bite of Seattle”. This festival is held at Seattle Center. Seattle Center is a large chunk of property right amidst the tall buildings of the largest city in the State of Washington, USA. It has carnival rides, games of chance, and large open areas, fairgrounds if you will, that surround a big fountain that spurts laser-colored water in time to the beat of classical music.
Everybody, all year long, looks forward to this festival; which the locals refer to as, “The Bite”. As in…
“Hey, Ray, you goin’ to The Bite this year?” (one friend to another in the line of the local Starbuck’s, which are on every corner) The reply, more likely than not will be, “Yes”.
A little background about “The Bite”. It started several years ago. Not “several years” in Thai time; which would be about 200 years ago. I’m talking about several years ago in United States time (that would be within the last 30 years).
This event hosts local-area restaurants. All of these restaurants set up little booths on the fairgrounds, which have small kitchens in the rear. They cook some of their signature dishes and serve them to the masses for about $4-$5 a pop. This gets the name of their respective restaurants on the tongue tips of the public; and it exposes otherwise-fastfood-going-locals to prepared fare other than Mr. Ronald McDonald’s.
A beautiful Seattle afternoon ‘neath the Space Needle.
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This lady carved miraculous things out of fruit!
A final product!
Every year there is a specific theme to this particular festival. Well guess what, folks? This year’s theme was…drumroll please…”Amazing Thailand!” bum-ba-da-bum!! (my attempt at trumpets blaring). What this meant was that a lot of Seattle-area Thai restaurants (and there are a ton of them) got together in one corner of the fairgrounds. They had a large stage in the center of their respective booths. This stage was the scene of all sorts of Thai-oriented spectacles. There was a Muay Thai demonstration, a couple of authentic dance demonstrations, and a whole bunch of classical Thai music demonstrations.
She must have been hot. It was 90 degrees F today!
Long story short folks….it was a gorgeously hot day in the Emerald City, and I ate a ton of delicious Thai food while being subjected to sights, sounds, and smells that were truly Thai. Pon and I felt truly at home today. I’ve included some pictures from our afternoon.
P.S.-Just as Wit has extended his hospitality to anyone visiting D.C., Pon & I do that same for any of our “blog” friends that may visit our fair city. The door is always open.
This is that fountain I told y’all about.
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