Taste of 8th

I went to the annual Taste of 8^th with some girlfriends on 5÷2÷15. I had been several years before and remembered enjoying it. I was curious to see what had change. Although there were an ample amount of restaurants that participated this year (e.g. Spring Mill Bakery, District Donuts, Chesapeake Room) I remember more restaurants participating when I had attended several years prior.
My girlfriends and I enjoyed some very generous helpings of food (and some of the items you could take away, like mason jars/​glasses that Capitol Teas provided).
Each of us left Taste of 8^th filling full.
The event was very organized (and appeared to be entirely volunteer run).
To attend the event, you have to purchase a book of 5 tickets (each ticket gives you 1 tasting) before the event (90% of the booklets are sold prior to the event). If you don’t get a booklet ahead of time they «release» the leftover booklets to the public at and/​or around 2:00 PM. (The event starts at 12:00 PM.) I personally liked this strategy because the most popular restaurants did not run out of food until the last 20 minutes of the event. (FYI you can use as many tickets as you want at the same restaurant.) It was a nice change. I have been to similar events where restaurants run out of food (often because the organizers did not have a good idea of how many people would be attending).
Taste of 8^th was a nice way to spend a Saturday afternoon (helped that the weather was gorgeous) and if I am free when it happens next year I’d be interested in getting a group of friends together again.

Sometimes I get down about life in DC. It’s so expensive, it’s got all kinds of transit and infrastructure issues, and it just doesn’t quite feel up to the standards of a modern American city like New York or Chicago. But then I go to stuff like Taste of 8^th and I remember that this city has its own cool identity too, its own little pockets of fun, and some pretty darned good restaurants to boot. I always leave full and happy and wishing I spent more evenings eating out on Barracks Row.
Every year it’s a different place that wows me. Last year Ambar’s giant savory cheese puff pastry dish was amazing, this year I think Cava’s orzo with braised lamb and feta was the clear winner, although Trattoria Alberto scored big with their «ricotta riot,» a giant stuffed spinach and ricotta ravioli in pink sauce paired with a perfect little crunchy gooey cannoli. That’s the best part about this thing, I haven’t been to every restaurant on Barracks Row yet so each year I can try a taste of the ones I still have to visit. Not that I don’t love throwing some business to my favorites like Belga and Lavagna too… I always make sure to spend at least one ticket each year on a wine tasting at Chat’s (which did a delightful rosé tasting one year) or DCanter (which spent this year teaching me about overlooked Italian varietals).
For a $ 20 bundle of five tickets I can walk around on a beautiful spring day and try some savory dishes, sip a few samples of wine, and get something sweet from one of the bakeries to finish it all off. What could possibly be a better way to spend a Saturday afternoon in the nation’s capital? This town ain’t so bad after all.

Not as big as some of DC’s other food festivals (Taste of Georgetown, Truckeroo, etc.), but still worth the trip. Family-​friendly and cheap eats.
Barracks Row Main Street is already a pretty tight spot during non-​event days, so… foot traffic IS to be expected. Just be patient and make the best out of a well-​meaning event.

This event is only three hours long, during a time of day when people don’t usually eat. This maks no sense. I had (wrongly) assumed I’d get to spend an evening tasting my neighborhood restaurants, but the event goes only from 1 – 4 pm. That’s barely enough time to get to two or three places with the crowds and everything. C’mon — make this a full day or evening event!

DC can’t do street fairs. Let’s see: they don’t close off the street for pedestrians so it’s not really a street fair; tix sold out by 3pm; most places were even closing down by 3pm even though the event is listed til 4; restaurants only served one item/​portion size so lack of variety; and Ted’s Bulletin ran out of milkshakes (they did give out free cookies to make up for this).
8 of us went, and we all agreed that Old Siam was by far the best deal: pad thai noodle with veggie & tofu, shrimp tempura, and sticky rice with mango. Takes up a whole paper plate! Another standout was Zest’s cheese grits and short ribs (enough said). Biggest disappointment was Levi’s Port Café for running out of food. We waited a good 10min for mac & cheese before leaving… at least they gave back the tix since we received nothing. Always disappointed by Belga (pistachio waffle with berries and cream sounds great, but it was literally one biteful).
Poorly planned. I will say for $ 20pp you receive 5 tastings, and that should be enough to fill you up. It’s a nice way to spend Sat afternoon; nothing remotely crowded here. Bring along some drinks though (few places had beverages).

Barracks Row needs to take some notes from other community Taste events.
First, the information about the event was unclear and misleading. Apparently last year, the event allowed people to pay $ 5 once and receive multiple tastings from multiple restaurants. This year, the website said «tickets are $ 5 each or $ 20 for five.» It would have been more clear if it said «$ 5 per taste.» In which case… everybody would have understood that it was a ripoff, and thus would not have shown up.
Perhaps the information was purposefully misleading, then.
Unfortunately, on top of the deceiving parameters of how the event would run, it was also very chaotic and disorganized. Some places had tables on the sidewalk, others took people inside — but it made it seem like only the sidewalk tables were participating.
One place, I was told by a person with a «barracks row» T-​shirt on and working the event, did not even give out anything, even though they were listed as a participating restaurant.
They also sold adult tickets and kid tickets — but no restaurant knew what the difference was. So really, everyone should have bought kid tickets for a better deal.
The quality of the tastes also highly varied — one place gave out pieces of crab rangoon while another gave out rack of lamb. Hello: one of these things is not like the other…
At once restaurant, the staff was clearly overwhelmed and not used to having more than 5 people inside at a time. When people came pouring in for tastes, they were told to wait for 10 minutes. Then, some people were seated, some weren’t, some were given food, some weren’t, and it wasn’t clear who had arrived first and should be given their tastes first. It was quite a confusing mess that could have been remedied easily — take down names, or give out numbers to bring some order to the chaos.
Lastly, apparently they were giving out «door prizes» and to be eligible for them, you had to write your name and phone number on the back of your taste ticket. Nobody told me that when I bought the tickets and it wasn’t written on the ticket. Bassey told me that after I had already used 2 of them (and no she doesn’t work for Barracks Row). This also could have been simply remedied by writing a line on the ticket that says «write your name and number on the back to be eligible for a prize!» Of course, who knows what the prizes are or if they even exist.
Total bust.
Well, not a total bust. The main reason why this gets 2 stars instead of 1 is because of Belga Café. They had some kind of delicious braised beef with a squirt of mashed potatoes accompanied by a shotglass of delerium beer, all delicious and beautifully presented. And they kept the line moving.