Taste of Ocean Springs: Oh what a night to eat, drink, and be merry
06.01.2012
Taste of Ocean Springs: Oh what a night to eat, drink, and be merryBy F. Burtonsky | Food & Restaurant Writer
The Ocean Springs Gazette
The success of the fourth annual Taste of Ocean Springs adds fuel to the culinary fire that is making Ocean Springs the culinary epicenter of the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
Forty restaurants and vendors attended offering a diverse and succulent menu that isn’t to be matched by any festival around. It is a grand marketing event that achieves what traditional advertising can’t; you get to taste what is being promoted and talk to the chefs, restaurant owners and entrepreneurs behind the food. It is a hands-on, face to face convention where serious foodies, gourmands and the casually interested judge and enjoy the best that Ocean Springs has to offer.
The Ocean springs Chamber of Commerce doesn’t have a mean streak but it is their intention to “addict you” to the good things that restaurateurs are putting on their menus and I must admit, it is a brilliant strategy. Five hundred tickets were offered for sale and sold out two weeks prior to the event. The word is spreading that this is the premier culinary event on the Coast and you better get in line early of you want to attend.
Cathead Vodka was there for the first time, Mississippi’s first legal distiller, offering a smooth vodka that is distilled six times and then charcoaled filtered. It is a small batch, eighty proof, sippin vodka that is great on the rocks on in a mixed drink. They also introduced their one-of-a-kind honeysuckle vodka; how’s that for an opening act? Other wines and drinks were provided by Fort Bayou Wine and Spirits, Lazy Magnolia Brewing Co. making the finest beer in Mississippi and Maisano's Fine Wine and Spirits.
Across the way Ms. Sippi’s Caviar was offering smoked chicken pasta featuring six ingredients from the Ocean Springs Farmers Markets. These included Uncle William's Signature Spice Rub and Ms. Sippi's Warming Sauce, Ole Smokey's Smoked Sausage, mini penne pasta tossed with Ms. Sippi's Caviar made with Gautier Gold Honey and micro-greens grown by the Bachman's of Heritage Cottage Urban Nano Farm. If you are not familiar with Mississippi caviar then you are in for a treat; it’s a spicy black-eyed pea salsa that’s just right for dipping. They also offer a Caramelized Onion Dip, Gumbo Salsa and a Muddy Fudge that’s just a little bit too good, but this evening it was all about the smoked chicken pasta.
The Mary C. O’Keefe’s Culinary Arts Café was well represented with a deconstructed Beef Wellington and Royal Lemonade, served by smartly attired Café staff decked out black CAC aprons and summer hats. If you haven’t attended one of their culinary classes then you are missing out one of the high points of the local food scene.
Coffee Fusion was next door offering a cranberry walnut salad with homemade cranberry vinaigrette that was well thought out and perfectly paired. They also offered Lunch with Elvis, a specialty coffee made up of the impossibly paired peanut butter, chocolate and banana, but it worked. Bayview Gourmet, always offering the unusually and divine had artichoke beignets and a house made remoulade. Manhattan Grill, one of Ocean Spring’s gastronomic pillars showed off their version of shrimp and grits, along with a martini side and no one left unfulfilled.
There were just too many vendors offering food that varied from solid standards to the wildly imaginative to cover all in one article. This is an event that has to be attended to be appreciated, but it does speak directly to what is going on in Ocean Springs, and that is a serious subject. New restaurants and specialty shops are opening with some frequency. Chefs and foodies alike are being drawn into the mix as Ocean Spring’s reputation grows. Unlike any other city on the Coast tourists can be seen walking the streets, looking for the food finds and interesting shops.
Other cities are depending on the glitz and glare of the casino world or are doing their best to invite industry into the city limits, but Ocean Springs, in a nationwide climate of foodies gone wild, has chosen the sublime, cultured approach of a small town focusing of a growing abundance of eateries that cover the spectrum from sophisticated to down home. Many are doing their best to use local ingredients, developing dishes that are inspired by Southern tradition with Creole seasonings. Others are bringing to the Ocean Springs far flung favorites from big cities like Chicago, Tapas from Spain, the cheese making secrets of Europe and the pho restaurants of Vietnam.
The Taste of Ocean Springs will undoubtedly grow and it is an easy guess that more and more out-of-towners will attend as its well deserved reputation grows. Memphis has its BBQ, the Delta has the Blues and NOLA has the French Quarter and Emeril Lagasse, but Ocean Springs has a food and restaurant community that is wonderfully diverse, conveniently located in a walk-about small town atmosphere and, if it stays the course, is headed down the gingerbread road to be known as one of the South’s culinary destinations.
Read more: The Ocean Springs Gazette - Oh what a night to eat drink and be merry
