Marga's Foodblog

Today we went to the Greek Festival at the St. Nicholas Church in San Jose. It was a smallish affair, just occupying the grounds of the church (but it's a large church). There was greek music and dancing, a couple of bounce houses, a few stands selling Greek things and, of course, food, tons of it. It's clear that most of the people go to the festival for the food - there was a deli and a bakery selling stuff to take home, a loooong stand selling gyros, souvlakia, sausages and other grilled specialties, another one selling mousaka, pastitsio and tyropitas in addition to other stuff, some of which you could also get inside the main dining hall, and Kokkari had a stand selling grilled lamb chops. There was also a "cafe" inside offering Greek sweets and Greek coffee. As you can imagine it smelled wonderful.

We tried hard to taste as much food as we could, but there were only three of us. We had the souvlakia ($5)- a skewer with thick pieces of marinated pork. It was very good though the pork was a bit tough - probably because of how lean pork is in the US. When I went to Greece many, many years ago I subsisted on souvlaki pitas (fat pitas smeared with tzaziki and filled with meat and french fries), but I could have sworn the meat was beef or lamb, not pork. In any case, we liked it. We liked the Greek sausage ($4) in a pita smeared with tzaziki even more - we'll have to look for those sausages, they were spicy, but not too much, and so flavorful.

Later we had the pastitsio ($4) and a baked chicken ($4) with a lemony marinade. Both were quite good, even if the chicken was so dried. All the food left us with the question, if Greek grandmothers can cook so well in such large quantities for the church, how come our local Greek restaurant, Luke's Grill can't?

I don't tend to like baklava ($2) but a taste proved that this one was of superior quality, though still too sweet and syrupy for my taste. A cookie dusted with powder sugar ($1) that I got for Mika wasn't that good, mostly tasteless.

Still, I'm sold, I'll definitely be going to their festival next year and I'll keep my eye open for other Greek festivals closer by.

We've been going to the Alameda County Fair every year since our oldest girl was born. The kids love seeing the animals and the rides (and Mike is quite good at one carnival game so he always wins something for Mika), and we all enjoy the concerts. Last year we saw The Village People, and this year we enjoyed K.C. and the Sunshine Band and will see Smashmouth (Mika even knows the lyrics to "All Star", from Shrek) on Friday.

We haven't been particularly impressed with food at the fair, however. It's expensive, of course, (drinks in particular), but it's also not that great. The funnel cakes are OK - but not worth the calories, and the hot dogs are just hot dogs, edible but safe. Among the poor choices, Big Bubba's Bad BBQ seems like the best.

We've tried their BBQ beef and their Tri-Tip sandwiches ($7.50), and neither were remarkable. The same can be said about their grilled chicken ($9.75 for 1/2 a chicken). The skin wasn't crispy enough for my taste, and while the dark meat was tasty enough, the white meat was clearly dry.

The pork ribs, however, were great. They were meaty, tender and smokey, and perfectly scrumptious. We also liked the mild BBQ sauce, they complimented it very well. Indeed, I'll venture to say that these are the best ribs I've had in the area, saved for the ones at Everett & Jones. And at $7.50 for 4 large ribs, they are very well priced.

The only side we've tried are their baked beans. They were perfectly fine, though unremarkable, beans. The portion was large enough to share, but quite expensive at $3.

In all, we're planning to eat there again, but just order the ribs.

It just occurred to me to check when the Greek Festival in San José would be, and I missed it by over a month! It took place in early June. I will have to remember for next year.

We really enjoyed going last year. As a consolation prize, I see that they've posted their recipes online. I'm going to specially try the oregano chicken, though given how hot it's been I may try to grill it instead of baking it.

Yesterday, St. Leander, probably the largest church in San Leandro, had its annual festival. It's a very fun and rather complex affair. They have jumpers and (rather poor) face painting, of course, but also a considerable number of semi home-made, semi-professional festival games where you can win tickets that you can then exchange for cheap toys (and really, cheap toys are best as you can throw them out almost guilt-free - there is still that environment thing - after they're done playing with them).

There was also food at the festival. There were stands selling Mexican, Portuguese, Filipino food and BBQ, and a stand selling cakes & sweets. For lunch Mika had a plain quesadilla, while Mike and I shared a Portuguese pork-loin sandwich, the name of which escapes me. The pork had been marinated in a vinegary sauce that suited it, and while it was a little tough the whole thing was pretty tasty. For $3 it was a bargain. Also for $3 we got 3 ribs accompanied by 2 slices of white bread, a corn-on-the-cob and a soda. The ribs were quite good, tender and tasty even if not very meaty. The sauce was clearly home made -they had a huge pot of it - but it tasted like it came for a bottle. It was too vinegary for our taste, and I'd say even a bit too sweet. Not a favorite. The corn on the cob just sucked. Even Mika, who is not very particular, wouldn't eat it.

We had one of those checkers sort of cakes and it was absolutely delicious. The chocolate squares were very dense, almost, but not quite, brownie like, and the yellow squares were moist and sweet. The whole thing had a great white frosting and was much better than we could have expected. Our thanks to the grandma who baked it for the church.

We also actually won a cake in a lottery (you bet on a number and if it comes up you win a cake). I chose the coconut cake but it turned out that the cake itself had a weird pinkish frosting. My best guess is that it's made of jam mixed with some sort of buttermilk frosting. The flavor is unique and it grows on you.

We also had some lollipops and some cotton candy (yes, we're pigs).

The festival was a lot of fun and I'm glad we went.