Our journey to the Rib Festival was one of a kind and enjoyed by us although it was short. The rib festival, which was also known as a rib cook-off, a category of food event that occurs throughout North America. The celebration is cheerful and pleasing to the rib lovers around the continent. The food mostly consists of pork and beef ribs, pulled pork sandwiches, also other barbecue dishes.
If you are like us, a meat lover, and interested in the food festival, then this blog is written for you. We are going to tell you the reasons why you should join the rib festival.
First of all, there is no admission fee, so don’t hesitate to visit. Once you get into the Rib Festival, you would be fascinated with the flow of people. Everyone is so excited and joyful while waiting for their barbecues and eating with their loved ones. No matter how cold the weather would be, the blaze and smoke from those delicious barbecued meats will warm you up.
Together with the food that is the music they are playing, it effectively encourages your spirit that increases our pleasure and enjoyment. Moreover, you will have a chance to see some chefs actual performance and dance by presenting their knife skill. It will catch your attention at your first glance over the BBQ grills. That you will want to buy their yummy ribs. If you tossed money in the tip jar, the staffs in the vendor would yell “Big Tipper!” and clang the bell. We believe they are encouraging people to tip. Besides, the surrounding environment is very clean that we hardly saw any trash on the ground or tables. Many garbage bins located everywhere, so people can easily find them. We also noticed that staffs were frequently sanitizing and changing the bins when they were full.
Four main vendors including Blazing BBQ, Big M’s Smokin’ Bones BBQ, Crazy Canuck Smokers and Billy’s BBQ; and different food trucks selling poutines, ice cream and donuts participating in the festival.
When you look up their vendor signs, you may get lost because they filled so many achievements on their signs, such as “the first” ribs, “the best” pulled pork and the 1st people’s choice, etc. to showcase the food quality and offer you what to eat.
Another thing that they used to display is awards. They show numerous trophies that they attained annually from competitions. There are a few booths that present their awards really outstanding.
For example, Blazing BBQ that presents its trophies on shelves and make sure anyone who visits, or approaches Blazing BBQ’s vendor, can observe the accomplishments it gained. Besides, Blazing BBQ displays its own sauces that customers could buy them.
After you grab your food, head over to the self-serve counter for additional sauces and napkins. We recommend taking many napkins as much as you can because a few would not be enough to clean your fingers.
While the ribs and music are fantastic, we have some unexpected experience with the corn from one of the food trucks. It only smelled buttery and tasted bland. After that, we noticed that we could add some seasonings that are placed aside the food truck for customers to help themselves.
Before moving on further, let us go back to the beginning of the Rib Fest. In particular, the theme of the event is actually a trend itself. We all know “Barbecues” is culinary popularity around the world. This is a short story how the Rib Festival begins. Bob Peeling, a dentist, and Larry Murphy, a renowned Alabama “ribber,” met at the Rotary Club in Burling, Ontario. After a conversation, they decided to hold a fundraising event in 1995. They had been traveling across North America together. In the meanwhile, they came up with an idea and began the BBQ event called “Cook-off,” which is a Barbecued battle between vendors, on a Labor Day in 1996. Since then, it became the most massive and favorite occasion throughout the United States and Canada. As a result, they broke the Attendance Record in 2017 with over 183,000 people joining the Rib Fest. Every year, they welcomed 20 vendors from across North America, sold 150,000 pounds of ribs in 4 days, and over $3 millions had been raised to communities and charities for over 21 years.
The organizers used “Ribfest” as the theme to create an exciting and fun atmosphere for everyone, but the core purpose is to raise fund for donations and charitable work. Coming to the festival, people enjoy the flavorsome appetite as well as music, dancing, and beer. Therefore, the festival is such an ideal place for families, friends, and partners to entertain and support communities.
At the same time, because of the enormous of attendants, the consumption and eco-footprint need to be concerned. They mostly used “Polystyrene foam container” and consume massively plastic knives and forks. We wish they could use eco-friendly materials instead of foam containers like biodegradable bowls or plates, so it could reduce the effect on the environment.
Now, let’s talk about the food items and what we got at the festival.
We had over four different plates from more than 3 different vendors and food trucks. Since this is the Rib Fest, it was all about the rib although you could get other barbecues such as sausages and pulled pork. If you want to get some vegetable with your rib, you’re at the wrong place because the vegetable option here is almost none. However, some food trucks have some appetizer, pastry, and snack before you are digging in the ribs.
It was delicious at first few bites due to the skin flavor and the sauce but the deeper you dig in, the blander and drier the chicken really is. Besides, for that chicken, the price was overvalued well over the flavor itself.
It was just okay and the juice that filled your mouth every time you take one in. There is no other way of saying it because it was smoked for the reasonable period of time and you could smell it on every bite you take, and the price was right for such a delicious snack before the main menu of the festival.
These are just about the snacks and let us move on to the main dish. There were four different trucks selling ribs, and we tried more than half the trucks for their tasty ribs. You might be thinking that ribs are ribs, they are all the same. Well, I am going to tell you that you’re wrong. Here at the festival, the ribs were so different from each other.
Let’s take the first rib we had from Billy’s BBQ as an example. It was so tender with the sweet sauce. Besides, we also tried out the ribs from Blazing BBQ, but it’s very dry and less delicate than Billy’s ribs.
Last but not least, we highly recommend that you must try this one out, Pulled Pork. We don’t have any word that can describe how excellent it is. When I just picked it up, one of our friends quickly ate it because it looks so pleasant. In the end, we have to buy one more because of its flavor and tastiness.
We all concentrated on eating, so no one of us noticed how the presentation of these barbecues until we look at them through photos. Overall, both consumers and the sellers didn’t care about the grills look. That’s entirely understandable since the meat is already beautiful itself.
With all these meats you need something to drink, don’t you? Well, sadly the beverage selection there was somewhat lacking. Don’t get me wrong, there are drinks but very few in option but yet they seemed to have a lot of alcoholic beverages at Beer tent despite having very limited drinks for the general people.
The final look of our enjoyable time
Our experience at the Rib Festival was so fun and unforgettable. Come here if you have a chance because we ensure you that your trip to the festival will be one of a kind.
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Reference
Ange. (2012, August 14). Ribfest: Worthy of 10 Food Comas. Retrieved from http://foodpunk.ca/2012/08/14/ribfest-worthy-of-10-food-comas/
Burlington Post. (2011, September 01). Chance meeting in 1995 led to Ribfest. Retrieved from https://www.insidehalton.com/community-story/2890339-chance-meeting-in-1995-led-to-ribfest/
Jang, P. (2016, February 22). What to expect at Ribfest: Meat, music, beer, maybe gluttony. Retrieved from https://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/what-to-expect-at-ribfest-meat-music-beer-maybe-gluttony-1.2180004
Rotary, C., CANADA’S LARGEST RIBFEST. Retrieved November 17, 2018, from http://www.canadaslargestribfest.com/
Staff, D. V. (2018, September 14). Here’s everything you can eat at Vancouver’s first annual Ribfest. Retrieved from http://dailyhive.com/vancouver/what-to-eat-vancouver-ribfest-2018?fbclid=IwAR0X1_9Il_49BUugKd5wOXW0AmQ6b–QVk2EnYMlHrgwUbPBWzQ_1l93f40