As State Fair week comes to a close, you may be under the impression that you have to wait for Seavers for the next outdoor festival, but look no further! Located in the West End, the MinnesoThai festival is in full swing. With live music, fresh food and local Thai artists, the MinnesoThai festival is the perfect way to spend an afternoon.
This year, the MinnesoThai festival was held Sept. 16 and 17. Starting Saturday morning at 10am, the festival continued into Sunday evening, wrapping up at 6pm.
The three of us decided to explore the festival this year, and we were not disappointed! We arrived around 2:30 Sunday afternoon and were pleasantly surprised to find free, accessible parking and free admission. As soon as you walk in, you are greeted by beautiful arrays of flowers and rows upon rows of booths selling everything from egg rolls to wooden frogs. There were live performances and dances going on in the middle of the space.
We started off taking a lap around the festival grounds to see all the food that was offered. The festivities spanned the length of one block, so it was very manageable to walk around. Quickly, our stomachs were growling at all of the delicious smells. We started our food journey with vegetable egg rolls. It may have just been our hunger, but they were some of the best egg rolls we had ever had! Despite the steep price of eight dollars for two egg rolls, we would definitely purchase them again.
Next, we stopped at a booth that was selling pork shumai, which is a form of dumpling. The woman at the booth gave us a large serving of the shumai and sprinkled it with fried garlic. We also took a homemade sauce to dip them in. The dumplings were perfectly bite sized, and the outside was soft while the pork was flavorful and tender. The sauce added the perfect salty and acidic element to form the perfect bite. We would highly recommend trying this, and the portion was perfect as a snack if split with other people or as a meal by yourself. For ten dollars, we found this to be extremely worth it!
Lastly, we needed a sweet treat to finish off our experience. We spotted a snow cone stand and decided to stop! We were given a cup of shaved ice and shown a station full of assorted syrups that we could pour onto our ice. After a lot of deliberation, we decided on grape and green apple. This was the perfect ending to our food experience!
The food and craft booths surrounded a central stage. While we were eating and walking around, there was a papaya salad eating contrast happening on stage! Much to our dismay, the contest was 21+, so we watched instead. The winners of the contest received large prizes of $300, $200, and $100 respectively. All in all the contest lasted about four minutes. There was suspenseful music and the MC poked fun at the contestants throughout. They did a very nice job keeping the crowd engaged and maximizing the suspense.
Overall, the food was delicious and the music was lively and fun. However, while there was no cost to enter the festival, the food was on the pricier side. On average, the food was eight dollars or more. As high school students, we had to be cautious about how much we were spending. We would recommend not going in planning to eat a full meal, unless you are ready to spend around $20 per person. Our plan was to get a few small food items and share, which proved to be a much more sustainable approach. Our total cost ended up being about eight dollars per person.
MinnesoThai: ★★★★☆
