York Food Festival & the New Walk

This weekend we walked into York to see what the Food Festival was like. We had heard good things, but left a bit disappointed. I can't give a definitive opinion yet as it's so expensive to eat out here we don't do it a whole lot, but the food is rather boring.

I can almost say with 100% certainty that one, if not all, of the following options will be on every menu. Fish & chips, hamburger & chips, lasagna & chips, and curry. We've only found one restaurant so far that doesn't serve chips at all. It actually had one of the two best meals I've had since I've been here... Caesar chicken sandwich on a ciabatta. It was made with rotisserie chicken or something really moist and tasty--no pressed chicken pieces here. And, of course, we've already talked about Sticky Toffee Pudding.

The Food Festival was more ingredient-based than meal-based, so I guess it's not surprising that it was lackluster. Lots of sausages, meat, pasties (ground meat in a pastry wrap), little meat pies, rabbit sandwiches, venison sandwiches, angus, pigeon (!), some cheese, some turkish food, some chinese, wine, beer, etc. Vegetarian delight!

I miss sushi and thai food and Papa John's pizza.

Really, the moral of the story is leave your diet at home. They won't recognize it over here. There is very little "light" food--the focus is on "comfort" food. Salads as meals don't seem to be a big thing. In fact "salad," sometimes referred to as "mini salad," is the lettuce and tomato for your sandwich. They use real, 100% fat ingredients and there doesn't seem to be a big fear of coronary disease as evidenced by fish fryers on every corner.

I'm certainly not trying to say the US is healthy, because we all know we're not and the amount of preservatives and chemicals we use is probably killing us all. There just isn't the variety here that you have in the US, so you have fewer alternatives.

So after touring the Food Festival, we took the New Walk. This walk was new in the 1730s and designed to be a tree-lined path along the river Ouse for the rich to strut their stuff. It's been extended over the years and the Millennium Bridge, built in 2001, lets you cross to the other side of the river and return to the city on the opposite bank. On the way, you pass old dueling grounds, a couple of historic features, and the Rowntree Park. There is more than one Rowntree Park in York and they are all very well done. They remind me of the garden areas at Ault Park. They were built with Rowntree & Company donations to honor the dead of WWI and were added to after WWII.

I'll leave you with a couple of pictures of the parks: