Addison Fork & Cork: Foodie’s Paradise

Ah! I have been looking forward to Addison’s Fork and Cork for months and I had the pleasure in attending it’s debut this past weekend. Fork and Cork is a two day food tasting event that replaced the tired and old Taste of Addison and I think this was a brilliant plan to rebrand and revive the annual feasting tradition. Here are the major differences:

Welcome to Fork and Cork!

Welcome to Fork and Cork!

-Taste of Addison featured only Addison restaurants (mostly chains or the same old restaurants) year after year. Fork and Cork brought in a mix of Addison restaurants and other more popular restaurants from Dallas.

-For Taste of Addison, admission was $10-$15 and each plate of food cost around $5-$10. Fork and Cork admission was $35, but there were a lot of free samples to take advantage of and other sample plates range between $1-$5.

-Taste of Addison featured mostly food tents and some of the random ones trying to sell weird ass trinkets. At Fork and Cork, you had the opportunity to sample wines/liquors/beers, watch cooking demos, try free samples of popular featured restaurants, and enjoy live music.

This event was just so much livelier. I think they did a great job this year setting up and recruiting an interesting mix of restaurants, breweries, distilleries, and so much more.

Upon entering, you already know this is one of Dallas’ must-be-seen scenes. I believe the value of the tickets is an indicator of what sets this event apart of the others: it’s meant to be a somewhat fancy event for Dallasites.

The layout is much more intricate. There are two very important areas for general admission folks to remember for next year: the grand tasting area and the guest restaurant sampling.

Grand Tasting Area

Grand Tasting Area for beers, wines, ciders, and liquors.

The grand tasting area featured mostly alcohol tastings. You didn’t have to pay any additional dollars to try these, however you are limited to the number of tastings. You had the option to taste beers, ciders, wines, and liquors including Don Julio and Herradura tequila. There was also a handful of other random free samplers to try including Tiff’s Treats, Austin Nuts, Cultivar coffee, and more. It is a pretty fantastic part of the event and everyone took advantage of it.

The second and also equally important part is the guest restaurant sampling. This year featured Pakpao, Oak, Casa Rubia, Belly and Trumpet and Abacus. This was really exciting for me because these are some of more revered and trendy restaurants in Dallas and they were offering free samples for patrons. Unfortunately I showed up as Belly and Trumpet and Pakpao ran out of their samples. Super sad.

After you’re done tasting and drinking your samples, it’s time to eat. Sprinkled around the event are restaurants offering tapa-sized plates of food for a few bucks. It was perfect for sharing and hitting as many restaurants as possible. Zico Coconut Water was also there passing out free bottles.

Perfect weather on the lawn

Perfect weather on the lawn

I think another detail of the event that I’d like to mention was the lack of ugly plastic furniture. There were cute wooden picnic tables and chairs that dotted the lawns and it was a really nice touch. I also think many of the tents were decorated to better fit each restaurants personality and style. Fork and Cork brought another level of class to the event and I definitely applaud them for it.

I’m excited for next year. This year was pretty successful and I believe it will only get better. I can only imagine the selection of restaurants that will be available for tasting next year. You don’t want to miss out.

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Perfect event for a nice day date.

 

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  1. Pingback: Get Ready for the 2nd Annual Fork and Cork Event in Addison | Deep Fried Fit

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