Heritage Festival 2011 Edmonton, AB - Day two of Heritage Days!

Posted by Day 2 of Heritage Days.. okay, all the locals still call it that even though its officially called Heritage Festival.  And we're back to eat some more in the glorious weather we've been having!

We make a beeline for the Israel tent as it was closed on Saturday for Sabbath (and today isn't a Saturday!)  We munch on flakey potatoey pastry named bourekas.. savory and comforting all in one

Every year, we nosh on their amazing falafel plate - crispy savory falafels (deep fried crushed bean mixture) drizzled with a garlic sauce, olives, spicy pickled peppers, pickled veges, hummus and slabs of grilled caramelized eggplant. Mmmmmm.   And every year, we ask if they have a restaurant where we can eat more of these wonderful falafels - and every year they tell us we have to come back next year. Get them while you can!!!

And since we missed out on jerk chicken yesterday, the Caribbean tent is the next one of the day... and they had jerk chicken!!! Smokey, mildly spicy and oooh sooo good.

The curried goat smelled wonderful and strangely not very gamey.  The seasonings masked the goaty goatiness well, with the resulting meat tender and mild.  Just be careful of the bones.

We admire the workings of balloon artists entertaining kids while we munch away

As well as a potter at the Turkey tent.. is it a vase, a bird.. a plane? Nah, just cool to see a finely made vessel take shape from an ordinary lump of clay

Next up in the tummy was the nalesniki - lightly salted Polish crepes filled with creamy cheese and swimming in strawberry sauce.

Noticing a lot of people walking around with bright yellow orange globes of mango goodness, we succumb and nab a large mango on a stick.. cut into flower-like wedges for easier eating. Available with your choice of a sprinkle of chili seasoning, or dunked in a sweet or sour syrup.  Get a face full of mango-y goodness!

At the Taiwanese tent we ooohed and ahhed at the cute handmade dough/clay miniatures.. the facial expressions on the mini newlyweds is priceless!

My favourite was still the little green chubby hippo!  The disorientated birdie is pretty cute too!

It was starting to heat up so we cooled off with a mango slushi complete with mango and papaya chunks from the Taiwanese tent before we left

After watching a few cultural performances at various tents, we popped into the Scandinavian tent and found this cute Christmas scene (cookies for display only)

And nibbled on krusball - a fluffy marshmallow enrobed in a thin layer of chocolate... marshmellowy cream sweeeeeet!  And we noshed on more riskrem - couldn't resist their awesome rice pudding.

After so many sweets, we had savory moist chicken skewers at the Sudan tent marinated in a tomato based sauce interspersed on the skewer with roasted peppers.. Mmmm.

Next up, we walked over to the Netherlands tent after watching traditional dances at the India stage.  We sunk our teeth into the "Frikandel speciaal" which was described as a minced meat hotdog.  This was a lean sausage stuffed with sweet diced onions, drowned in a sweet sauce and laced with hollandiase sauce.  I added a splut of grainy good mustard on the side to dunk the stuffed sausage in... Mmm. 'nuf said.

While noshing on the Frikandel speciaal, we browsed a selection of wooden clogs for sale.. and we spotted some artfully tossed around a tree

We finished off the day with Joojeh at the Iran tent - chicken skewers lightly marinated with saffron served with 1/2 a roasted tomato, a bed of lettuce, ranch sauce and a pita to roll up the whole thing.  Simple and refreshing.

There's only one more day of taking in the sights, sounds and tastes of Heritage Days.. click here for pics from Heritage Day #1, stay tuned for part 3... Heritage Day #3... and see you all there!! :D