cincy cinco festival

this weekend beth t. and i had a taco craving so we decided to hit up the cincy cinco festival. it sounded like it would be pretty cool. you can't go wrong with tacos and salsa music!

beth, tacos, y cerveza

as it turns out, the venue (riverbend) did not end up being that great. it was really hot, despite the actual temperature of high 60s, because of the pavement and lack of trees. but on top of that, it was really spread out and did not really feel like a cohesive festival. also, the majority of the space was taken up with weird booths which really were not entertaining (ie: kroger, various banks, planned parenthood). of course the point is to get services to the spanish speaking community, but it just wasn't really that fun.

feed me, seymour!

we did want to see some of the music. beth was especially excited about the mariachi band. well this turned out to be a man with a guitar, aka the world's smallest mariachi band. at various points, audience members and the reds mascot "gapper" (i had never heard of this thing before and it kind of freaked me out) got up on stage so he was not so lonely. it was funny, but also kind of weird.

tacos, my one true love in life

we did definitely satisfy our craving for tacos (and other tasty latin american food items including banana leaf tamales and churros) so that was good. major shout out to taqueria mercado, which has some of the best tacos in the cincinnati area.

the line just kept going at taqueria mercado's booth

however, since we spent $25 for tickets and parking alone, plus another $12 or so each for food and beer, i really feel like it was not worth the money or the drive. beth speculates that since there are now 3 festivals focused on the spanish speaking community, it might be too much and no one is really putting that much effort into each individual festival. i think that is a possibility.

once you go banana leaf, you never go back

i have now spent 2 consecutive weekends at coney island/riverbend for various festivals (last weekend was the flower show). both were kind of expensive and kind of boring, and both were overrun with booths of people selling crap and offering boring services. maybe festivals are just not my thing. anyway, at cincy cinco we did accomplish our food goals so that was good!