Sunday, August 26, 2012

2012 Hot Sauce Festival- Austin, TX

Today, Mike and I went downtown with approximately 15,000 Austinites to eat salsa.  If you know us at all, you know our food of choice is Mexican.  We had no idea this festival even existed but we will definitely be back next year!

There was free parking with a shuttle bus to take you over to the festival.  There was a pretty long line, but we didn't have to wait very long.

To get in the festival was free, they just asked that you bring three non perishable food items.  Once at the festival, there were several things going on.  There was live music, several drink booths, several hot sauce booth/vendors, a few food vendors, a few other vendors, and last but not least, a huge area where you could try salsas for free.

We started out under the tent where the salsas were.  There were 3 sections you could go through- specialty, green salsas, and red salsas.  There were several lines for each flavor but each line was pretty long.  We chose the red salsa line. 


Once you got close enough in line, there were trays of chips and then you just got to try many, many different salas.  You could also register to vote for your favorites.  I was in salsa heaven!!

We then walked around to other vendors and I am soooo glad we did!!  While walking around we discovered Black Iguana Cocktail drinks.  It's a local company based out of Tomball, TX.  I have clients that refer to these types of beverages as "mommy capri suns".  We tried the strawberry margarita one and it is super yummy.  I am very picky when it comes to alcoholic beverages.  I rarely drink and when I do I want something sweet, want to taste the alcohol, but I don't want it so strong it burns when I drink it.  Most drinks like this, wine coolers, things like that, I really don't like.  This however, I had drank in probably 20 minutes and could have drank a few more.  I loved it!



Another thing we found was Austin Slow Burn, another local company.  They had their salsa's to sample, as well as some jams and their pulled pork.  Let's just say that Mike and I looooved the pulled pork.  They have this Jamaican Jerk Marinade they use and it was to die for.  We liked it so much we bought some of the marinade to try at home and I can not wait.



We also tried their Green Chili Con Queso and were a huge fan.  I could probably eat the whole thing in one sitting.

The other thing I tried that I loved was their Hot Apple Pie Jam with Jalapenos.  It had this perfect balance of sweet with spicy and it was oh so good. On the website it says it would be good on ice cream and I tend to agree.  But the thing I was thinking while eating it was to put it on cream cheese and eat with crackers. Yum!
  

There was also several food vendors present.  We had a beef fajita taco from Jalapeno Joes.  The meat was very moist and they had 3 salsas that were all very good.  We also had a slice of Green Chili Pizza from Brick Oven Pizza.  I am still thinking about the pizza even hours later.  I don't see it on their menu so I hope that doesn't mean they don't have it, because I forsee a trip to the restaurant this week.  We took a picture after it was half eaten.  What?? We were hungry!



All in all it was a very fun (and tasty!) experience and we will definitely look forward to going back!

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