What’s Going On?

This weekend San Francisco was host to the annual Union Street Festival. This festival ran along six blocks of Union Street from from Gough St. to Steiner St. Two bandstands were along the festival route that had live jazz and Latin music. The festival was full of arts and crafts booths, four or more food booths at each intersection, a kiddie carnival on one end, and not to mention the retail stores and restaurants that are on Union Street itself. The festival was more or less a huge mecca for shopping and spending.

Highlight of the festival probably were the live jazz music and the crab fries. Live music has always been a great enjoyment of mine. I’ve always loved listening to music being played and watching the facial expressions and the gestures that the musicians make while playing and singing. What always gets me more hyped is when there’s an awesome beat and several people let loose and just dance in front of the stage. I sometimes feel that I want to boogie on down, but I’m to embarrassed.

When coming to festivals I tend not to eat too much from the food vendors because from festival to festival they all tend to have the same but slightly different foods. I’ve had my share of chicken skewers, corn on the cob, garlic fries, and other carnival like foods, but what caught my eye this year was crab garlic fries. I must tell you that the fries were just golden delicious and fried to perfection. There was some aioli dressing on top of the fries and on top of that was a nice helping of some crab. The crab wasn’t flavored, but that didn’t matter because the flavor of the fries and the aioli made it all tasty when eating them all together. If you see it you must try it. Almost reminded me of some fries that I had in Baltimore at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. There they had crab fries that were seasoned with a delicious crab seasoning, but no real crab meat.

Having been to many festivals, this festival is probably one of the least favorites of mine because to me I don’t see too much culture or any cultural aspect in it. On the other hand, if you want to count consumerism then yes it has the American culture written all over it. This festival was full of things to buy and eat or drink. I didn’t see any booths that dealt with creating arts, nor booths that had the history about Union Street. I’m in favor more of the Chinese New Year festivals in Chinatown, the Japanese Cherry Blossom Festival, and Carnaval on top of any street fair.

Next week, will be the Haight Street Fair. Similar to the Union Street Festival, the Haight Street Fair will have pretty much similar vendors and music, but I think the 60s and 70s culture will be more apparent to festival goers. I’m actually looking forward to this fair because of the colorful neighborhood and the lively crowd that most likely will be there. Be prepared to be amongst the hippie generation of people that promote peace, not war. This is a much more different dynamic than the yuppieish Union Street Fair. Bring your dancing shoes.