Last week the much anticipated America Loves Bacon tour made a stop here in Tampa. I’ve been salivating over the promotional pics for weeks and weeks. When I got word that I could come and blog about it I jumped at the chance! My teen son and I had bacon fever.
We came hungry! We arrived right when the gates opened because I planned to leave no stone unturned, no bacon unsampled, no swine uneaten. (I’m aware those aren’t words, just go with it.)
My first reaction to entering the fair grounds was, wow it’s pretty small. There were a few food trucks, the Datz and Dough stand, and the Madison Chocolatiers West stand. There was space for a couple of other stands but they were vacant. A bit further there were covered stands for the 4 different areas: Hog on a Stick, Swiny Sweets, Grill It Up, and Butcher’s Block. The main covered pavilion had beer and drinks, seating, and the cooking demonstration area. There was also a small kid’s zone.
First, let’s talk about what was awesome!
Datz/Dough brought their A game. It’s one of my favorite restaurants in Tampa and they are known to incorporate bacon in their dishes. They even serve a platter of bacon as an appetizer. Think of them as the Floyd Mayweathers of baconology. It’s really just not even fair to the competition.
Datz – We tried the bacon macaroni and cheese and the bacon sample. Both were yum!
Dough – Dough is the bakery/deli next door extension of Datz and they did such delectable things with bacon.
Pictured below: bacon brownie, bacon caramel popcorn, and bacon doughnuts.
My favorite bacon food item of the entire festival was the bacon ice cream. Say that slowly – baaaaaaaaacooooon iiiiiiice creeeeeeeam. Oh my word! This was a full on party in my mouth. This was my first time having bacon ice cream and now I’m having withdrawals because I can’t just waltz into Dough and buy it. It’s just not fair to start this love affair with me and then walk right out of my life.
There were real bits of bacon, chocolate bits, and marshmallows. It was the perfect combination of salty and sweet and textures. Everything played together masterfully in this swine and dairy dessert mashup. This is quite possibly one of my favorite things I’ve ever eaten, like top 10 for sure. The festival was worth it just for that orgasmic foodie experience.
Madison Chocolatiers West
Madison Chocolatiers West offered some very unique bacon items. I’m intrigued. They had several things available for sample and a very extensive list of items for sale.
The samples we tried were the bacon pretzels and the bacon peanut butter caramel apple. The bacon pretzel was tasty . I would love to tell you how yummy the caramel apple was, but I can’t because the greedy teenager missed the memo that we were sharing and tasting to maximize our sample tickets. He devoured it as soon as I snapped the picture. So you will have to take his word for it. He licked his fingers clean and declared, “Wow, that was good!” So there you have it, from the mouth of a 15 year old boy.
Swiney Sweets
Bacon Funnel Cake from the Swiney Sweets tent was tasty. Mine didn’t have powdered sugar as some of the others I saw after the fact but it didn’t take away from it tasting good. The bacon was sprinkled on top of the funnel cake which was drizzled with what I think was honey. What would have made it otherworldly would be if the bacon was IN the batter. I’ve had a bacon pancake and a bacon waffle before so it would be the same concept. Someone make this magical bacon infused funnel cake for me please!
And that’s where my praises end. It pains me somewhat to write this review because I was so hyped about the ALB festival.
I love bacon — and food in general — but definitely bacon. Unfortunately I was a bit underwhelmed overall. With so many awesome festivals coming to the Tampa Bay area, a very high bar has been set. To be fair it’s a newer festival and with a new event there will always be things that could be improved upon to make it better the next time around. The concept and the idea is awesome but the execution in some aspects just didn’t measure up to our expectations.
Grill It Up
First there is the bacon cheddar hotdog. It was basically a pork hot dog with cheddar in the middle. The menu said it was studded with bacon but there wasn’t any bacon on mine. Where’s the bacon? If I’m at bacon fest, I’m expecting to eat things I cannot not normally have. I was expecting a hotdog wrapped in bacon or stuffed with bacon. I want to be wowed. I can by cheddar stuffed sausage links at the local grocery store. This was a fail for me.
Pictured next is the bacon burger slider – ground bacon pattied into sliders and topped with a caramelized onion ranch. As you can see, I was afraid to continue after the first bite. It was VERY undercooked. You can’t undercook pork. You just can’t. I had to spit out that initial bite for fear of getting sick so I can’t comment about the taste of the pork. Again as I mentioned above, I didn’t really get how this passed as a bacon dish. It seemed more like ground pork. Another disappointment
Hog on a Stick
I wanted to like this. I did. The flavors sounded promising. I tried the Carolina BBQ Bacon and the Espresso and Black Pepper Bacon. The bacon was cold…not cool…cold. It was like it had been sitting out for while. It was also very tough to tear off of the stick. The flavors didn’t come through very well for either sample. I’m not a fan of cold strips of bacon so perhaps if this had been served hot it may have come across better.
Butcher’s Block
Pictured above is canadian bacon, shoulder bacon, general tso bacon nuggets, garlic buffalo bacon nuggets, and pig tails. For our samples we had the general tso bacon nuggets and the pig tails. The sauce on the general tso nuggets was excellent. However the cut of bacon I got was all fat and no meat. I wasn’t too keen on eating a cube of fat. It was also cold, not served hot. Am I the only person that doesn’t want to eat cold bacon?? The pig tails were essentially like jerky sticks. They were ok, nothing extraordinary.
Swiney Sweets
Judging by the menu at Swiney Sweets this should have been a really good booth. Alas more disappointment. On the left is their bacon doughnut. It was a mass of fried chewy dough with bacon bits sprinkled on it. No bueno. We tried the creme soda bacon. It was cold and chewy. We couldn’t taste the creme soda flavor at all. We also tried the bacon peanut brittle. My mom said if you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all….so yeah. Let’s just not even rehash that one.
What was a bit confusing to me was who made the food for the 4 zones. It didn’t appear to be from a particular restaurant. I’m curious if these same menus are offered at the other bacon tour locations. I’m not sure. Allowing for freshly prepared, reasonably warm bacon would have improved some things tremendously. Perhaps engaging more local restaurants would have been a better option. If it hadn’t been for Datz/Dough and Madison Chocolatiers it would have been a complete bust.
The kid’s zone was a bounce house, a balloon artist, and a coloring table. It was kinda sad to be honest. They should definitely work on partnering with a sponsor to improve that feature.
Would I attend another one? Yes, I would be willing to give at another try. The concept is fantastic. With some adjustments this could become an epic annual event. Have you been to an America Loves Bacon event in another city? How was your experience?
I was provided with tickets in exchange for sharing my experience with my audience. As always I value my reader’s trust so I will always give my honest opinions. Full Disclosure
Lauren G. , Outdoorsy Diva™
“Adventure is a lifestyle!”
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