Rib Fest

Rib Fest has now come and gone on Sparks Street in Ottawa.  Rib Fest is always a big deal in our household, Tim’s second favorite time of year.  Tim has the advantage of working downtown, so he can go over for lunch, which he does, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  In addition to that, I met Tim downtown on Wednesday after work for dinner.  I parked a few streets away and you can tell you’re getting close to the main event.  The smell of the barbeque comes first, then you can see the smoke from all the grills.  Then you see the people, all lined up to get their meal.  Our goal is to try as many stands as possible in the 5 day span.  To accomplish this, I go to one stand, Tim goes to another to cover more ground.  We are serious about our barbeque.  Sparks Street is closed to cars it’s like an outdoor mall with many shops and restaurants. The barbequer-s set up right in the middle of the street.  The restaurants open their patios to people with Rib Fest food and will let them sit at a table as long as they order drinks, which is a pretty good trade off.  My first food at rib fest was a pulled pork sandwich, Tim had ribs.  The portion sizes are huge, a half rack was all Tim needed.  My sandwich must have had a pound of pork in it, definitely eaten with a fork to make it a more manageable size.

 The next day, Tim had the great idea to bring home pulled pork from Rib Fest, so we had that for dinner.  Then on Friday night, Tim brought home pulled pork again, but this time we made it into nachos, it was really delicious.

We got together with friends and went again on Saturday for dinner.  Tim and I had ribs, really good.  It’s amazing how big the ribs are.  We take note of the smoke ring, and how well the meat comes off the bone, all signs of good barbeque.  When you go to a booth, the displays are over the top.  Above the grill, they have posters of all the awards they have won over the years and there is usually a table displaying all their trophies.  You can see each grill master cooking the food over the method they choose, different types of wood, or charcoal. 

I enjoyed everything I had this year, Tim had one bad lunch experience, but all and all, pretty good.  There were a few new things this year, and depending what booth you go to.  One of our friends on Saturday night had hash, potatoes and corn mixed in with pulled pork.  There was a booth that was selling a potato cut into a spiral, fried and put on a stick.  There were more beef ribs this year than I saw last year, and certain booths sold grilled corn.  The weather was great for it, no rain, but tremendously hot.  That didn’t stop the people from coming to enjoy really great barbeque.  We will wait with anticipation for next year’s event.