A La Carte & Art

I’ve lived in Mountain View for 2 years and anticipate each festival with a mixture of hope and dread.
Unfortunately, all of these festivals are all the same — terrible food (gyros, funnel cakes and chow mein out of the 1970’s), faux craft beer, gaudy jewelry, overpriced amateurish art, snake oil salesmen and big corporate sponsors (why thanks Geico, I didn’t know you offered insurance in my neighborhood).
The absolute worst part is the cover band that drones on all day with god-​awful renditions of «You can’t always get what you want» and the like. Well Mountain View — if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you need. This is the 21^st century and you are part of a multicultural technohub in foodie paradise. Get your act together.

Living in Mountain View for more than 3 years and I didn’t know about this festival since my frined in San Jose told me.
Good food, artists’ shops and classic car collection. Lots to see. Beer of course.
I am not a bif fan of festival but this is so local and nice to walk around under the perfect California sun.

One of the better festivals in the bay area. I’ve been to a few locally and I definitely feel like this one is a bigger and more successful one. There are more vendors in terms of arts and food. The live music is fun but sometimes may be a little too loud. The food is decent, although wouldn’t say amazing. My favorite was the sweet corn. One of the best I’ve ever had!
Didn’t end up buying anything but a white truffle oil for cooking, but I’d definitely come back just because it’s so close-​by and a fun little Sunday afternoon activity :)

This festival is not as big as the September Mountain View Art & Wine Festival, however, it’s still a noteworthy stop in the summertime street fair round up. The art is more of the «craft» genre-​not really «fine art» per se, but still interesting to browse. Crowds are definitely smaller and it’s more mellow than the September event. If you’re local, I’d recommend stopping by, but being I am driving from the East Bay, I’ll probably skip it next May.

I admit to liking going to these little festivals even if I barely buy anything at all. Parking sucks if you don’t come near the start of the festival hours, but there is ample parking places.
I love walking around & seeing all the different art pieces from local artists. So many unique & interesting pieces of art! There is also multiple tents for different foods such as kettle corn, funnel cakes, crepes, etc. if you have kiddos, there’s an area where they can play on those blow up structures like a bouncey house/​slide.
It’s nice to just walk around & enjoy the day with your family or by yourself. Good company all around!

‘Twas a fun little festival. Felt like a small state fair or a big farmers market.
It was nice to walk around all the vendors and see what they had, but I really enjoyed all the fair food. I don’t usually have things like Funnel Cakes or Bacon-​wrapped hot dogs outside of fairs.
The parking garages had plenty of space, so parking wasn’t a problem.
There were plenty of activities and things for kids like a large tramp/​bungee and a bounce house.
There was also live music that was pretty good.
For those that didn’t want fair food, this was on Castro street and most of those restaurants were still open.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see the car show like I was hoping.

First time at this event and it was great. I had a hard time finding parking but it was worth it. It was a bit hot but my baby and I enjoyed it. They had many art booth, drinks, jumpers, and etc. They were some great stuff there but damn are they expensive!!! O didn’t find anything I really needed or really really wanted but I just love walking around and enjoying the atmosphere…
I did get a box of strawberries for $ 8 :)
I would definitely recommend everyone to come check it out.

as a resident of mountain view, i really look forward to festival season, where castro st is closed to vehicular traffic, allowing vendors to set up their displays and patrons to casually stroll downtown mountain view.
it was a gorgeous, sunny weekend for this year’s rendition of «a la carte» and all of the vendors were out. they had art displays, organic bath products, handmade jewelry, unique clothing, and children’s items. in the middle of the strip, there was a stage set up for a live band, and they kept the music going all day long. there were also many food vendors present; you had your choice of burgers, fries, crepes, thai food, sweets, etc.
to my surprise, parking wasn’t bad at all. while street parking was completely full, we were able to find a space in the nearby parking structure (a block away) fairly easily. note that parking in downtown mountain view is free, and on the weekends, there are no time restrictions.
this is definitely a family friendly event and i highly recommend this annual street festival to all ages.

This was a pretty fun street festival! I popped by the Unilocal tent and had some perfectly pleasant small talk with the SF crew, then meandered around the various vendor tents and stared at pretty crafty things. Although it was a tad crowded, parking was easily found (across the street at the SS office, hehehe) and the event seemed well organized and tidy/​clean.
Best thing? The Dave’s Killer Bread tent, cinndawg all up in my mouth, yesss.

What a fun festival, on a perfect day, with unbeatable weather and friendly folks in an ideal location! My fiancé and I were in awe of the number of booths up and down Castro Street, having vivid flashbacks to some of our best memories from last summer at the Taste of Chicago!
We came in search of crepes and found them! (The food booths seem to be organized in nodes at each of the cross-​streets, so if you don’t see anything at Dana, walk over to California, etc.) We got a triple-​berry whipped cream crêpe, and a banana nutella crêpe… They were the perfect start to our A la Carte experience! The whipped cream was put inside the crêpe, which made it pretty melty and hard to taste… And I could have used some more nutella. But when could I not use more nutella? I could use more nutella right now, and I just finished breakfast!
Next stop was for mimosas: Pretty pricey ($ 6 pours, plus $ 5 to buy a reusable flute) but more delicious than anything. Everyone kept asking us where we had gotten them, since most festival-​goers seemed to be going for the beer.
The rest of the festival was fantastic, with so many talented art vendors and gourmet food booths! We got a dip-​chiller or –warmer for $ 20, and almost used it that night, we were so excited about it! We entered in countless drawings (and I have yet to get a spam email), we got Mother’s Day presents and a free tote bag from Unilocal,we tasted wine slush and dips and balsamic vinegars and oils and pomegranate products.
Our only complaint: there weren’t enough dogs. So next year, Unilocalers, bring your dog! They have a bacon-​wrapped hot dog stand, Fido will love it, even if he’s not an art connoisseur.

Great weather to be walking downtown mountain view on Castro st. We walk ten minutes to get here, and it is a perfect way to spend a few hours with family and friends. Had the «Thai Stick» chicken noodle bowl for $ 10. Get it tried some of the garlic fries next door which were good also.
Most of the food is towards the end of Castro toward el camino. Check the corner of Castro and California. Enjoy the art and outdoor time.

I went this year (2010) primarily for the food and the car show. After checking out all the food booths, I got calamari which was pretty tasty. I visited the car show portion which featured beautiful cars and friendly car-​owners to chat with, but not very many vehicles as it was the first year to include this feature.
Some of the smaller musical acts were excellent, especially the jazz combo. The main stage act was horrible.

I remember stumbling on the fair randomly a couple of years ago — my boyfriend would take me here (Castro) to eat often whenever I visited since it was close to our place. And that day just happened to be the fair & we didn’t even know about it.
This past weekend, as soon as we got there, we noticed all the roads were blocked! It took awhile to find parking but we found one luckily~~ As soon as we walked out of our car, we smelled something REALLY nice!
The smell led us directly to the food court where we found booths for GARLIC FRIES, FISH & CHIPS, & a ton of other yummy food! We ended up getting fish & chips… and a few booths down, we found SAUSAGE IN A HOAGIE, which turned out to be quite delicious! The only bad thing is that some of the food items were pretty expensive ($ 8 for fish & chip — really?! I think the $ 6 we spent on the sausage in a hoagie was a better investment since it can feed 2!)
The rest of the fair was pretty decent — a lot of paintings, decorations, etc… random things you usually see at fairs. I feel like most of the booths sell products that will attract female rather than male, but it was nice just to walk around and check out all the random booths. They do sell tickets for wine/​beer tasting but I’m not much of a drinker so we didn’t spend any money on that.
If you just happened to be here, it’s not a bad place to walk around for a couple of hours… but I don’t know if I would actually reserve my weekend just to check the fair out.

This is first «real» festival of the season. We’re on our way tomorrow for the 2010 addition. We go to a lot of festivals (I even maintain a spreadsheet of festivals around the Bay Area and beyond) and persoanlly I like this one. It’s not one those travelling flea market type that Millbrae or Foster City has. They really do have good art and things made by individuals. We go early and it’s never a problem parking. It’s not mega crowded and that’s OK by me. I don’t go to Festivals for the music so I couldn’t tell you if the music good or not. There are lots & lots of restaurants downtown and I guess we do look forward to stopping in at one before w make our way back home. All in all a nice way to start the festival season!

This event happened over a record heat weekend. Not good. There were a lot of cars yet not that many people. Castro street itself is pretty cool but geez how many tie dye clothing booths do we really need? Of the many festivals I’ve been to in and around the Bay this was probably the saddest one. Maybe it was the heat? It was just too sparse for me. I won’t even get into the stank ass hippie organic green theme they had going on at one corner. I definitely had more fun at the Artichoke festival in Castroville. I won’t be coming back to this one. Thansk but no thanks A La Carte.
* organizers: if you add wine to your title I may reconsider.

If you like to eat then Mountain View is your place. There is this street where they hold the Ala Carte and Art festival that is all food places that look really good. This event was about 200 vendors selling jewelry, photographs, clothes and other art media. I loved some of the vendors here and came home with some very unique non-​mass produced jewelry such as a boa constrictor snake skin bracelet and seashell rings. The street food stalls are limited, but with all of the tasty restaurants in the area, you have plenty of food choices. There was one stall that had AMAZING photographs of all of these exotic places and faces — children in South America, women dying fabric in India, salt collectors in Morocco. I wanted to take the entire collection home, but they were beyond my price range. There was one vendor that used brightly colored butterflies and arranged them in clear frames so that you can truly admire them. You won’t believe that butterflies come in all of these crazy electric colors. There was one stall holding free yoga classes. There were several vendors pushing the «green» lifestyle. Starbucks and Jamba were here along with a stall handing out free chocolate and coupons for Whole Foods. Bring cash so you can bargain with the vendors. I loved this event and will definitely come back next year.

Should’ve written this review yesterday because it’s over. Whoops!
Saw an ad in the Mercury and knew I had to come. Who can resist good food, music, and arts & crafts on a sunny Saturday in cute downtown Mountain View?
Although they had a ton of food, I «only» had the cheesesteak, strawberry shaved ice, and freshly squeezed lemonade. The cheesesteak was SO satisfying, but quite messy, and the shaved ice & lemonade were perfectly refreshing on a hot day.
Check out the website for other upcoming events.