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Seattle’s Taste Washington Festival

By Mark Thompson

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It’s not only the double daffodils and resplendent tulips at Pike Place Market that herald spring in Seattle. Since 1998, Seattle has celebrated the advent of spring with Taste Washington, the city’s annual oenophile and culinary smorgasbord, which has become the nation’s largest single-region wine and food event.

This year’s 16th edition of Taste Washington featured a whopping 200,000 wine pours from 750 different wines. Over the course of the two-day event, more than 4,000 food and wine enthusiasts from around the world enjoyed wines from 225 Washington wineries, alongside food from 65 of the Pacific Northwest’s most acclaimed restaurants.

Wine and food seminars were complemented by cooking demonstrations from chefs who utilized a state-of-the-art Viking kitchen on the show floor to wow audiences with their culinary prowess.

(Source: MRNY)
(Source: MRNY)

Top local chefs on the Viking Chef’s stage included Kim Mahar, pastry chef of Michael Mina’s RN74 in Seattle, and Bobby Moore, chef of Woodinville’s Barking Frog at Willows Lodge, one of the Pacific Northwest’s preeminent restaurants.

Apart from the Chef’s Stage, the expansive exhibition hall at CenturyLink Field Event Center included an espresso café, a dessert and music bar, the VIP Barrel Room, a VIP cardholder’s lounge, a farmers market, as well as a massive raw seafood bar helmed by Taylor Shellfish Farms that featured some of the nation’s freshest oysters including Pacific, Kumamoto, Olympia, and the sublimely delicious Shigoku.

Woodinville Wine Country, which is located less than 30 miles from downtown Seattle, offered guests a tasting lounge to sample limited release wines from its more than 90 winery tasting rooms.

(Source: MRNY)
(Source: MRNY)

The logo for Taste Washington showcases a wine bottle, with the aphorism “Drink. Eat. Learn.”  While there is no question that Taste Washington is an oenophile’s paradise, this year’s iteration of the popular event showcased the culinary bounty that has helped make the Pacific Northwest a foodie heaven.

Take a look at some of the most delicious and popular morsels from this year’s Taste Washington – which will insure that you won’t want to miss the 17th edition of Taste Washington in 2014.

The crowds were five-deep for Chef Bobby Moore of Barking Frog at Willows Lodge in Woodinville, who served prawn and Berkshire pork dumpling, with pickled vegetables, black garlic cilantro emulsion, and ponzu. (Source: MRNY)
The crowds were five-deep for Chef Bobby Moore of Barking Frog at Willows Lodge in Woodinville, who served prawn and Berkshire pork dumpling, with pickled vegetables, black garlic cilantro emulsion, and ponzu. (Source: MRNY)
According to one food-obsessed Seattleite, the smoked octopus with soybean hummus and tomato raisin jam from Trace at W Seattle was this year's most revelatory morsel. (Source: MRNY)
According to one food-obsessed Seattleite, the smoked octopus with soybean hummus and tomato raisin jam from Trace at W Seattle was this year’s most revelatory morsel. (Source: MRNY)
One of the most beautiful and delicious culinary offerings came from Blackfish: Dungeness crab salad in a cucumber wrap, with house Sockeye lox, served on a taro root crisp. (Source: MRNY)
One of the most beautiful and delicious culinary offerings came from Blackfish: Dungeness crab salad in a cucumber wrap, with house Sockeye lox, served on a taro root crisp. (Source: MRNY)
Perhaps the most lethally addictive dessert came from Yard House: salted caramel butterscotch pudding topped with house-made whipped cream, chocolate crumble, and maldon sea salt. Seconds, anyone? (Source: MRNY)
Perhaps the most lethally addictive dessert came from Yard House: salted caramel butterscotch pudding topped with house-made whipped cream, chocolate crumble, and maldon sea salt. Seconds, anyone? (Source: MRNY)
Palisade Waterfront Restaurant served pastrami-cured king salmon and truffled asparagus salad on soft pumpernickel. (Source: MRNY)
Palisade Waterfront Restaurant served pastrami-cured king salmon and truffled asparagus salad on soft pumpernickel. (Source: MRNY)
The Yellow Leaf Cupcake Co. offered a decadent variety of cupcakes, including their signature flavor pancakes n'bacon, as well as chocolate peanut butter. (Source: MRNY)
The Yellow Leaf Cupcake Co. offered a decadent variety of cupcakes, including their signature flavor pancakes n’bacon, as well as chocolate peanut butter. (Source: MRNY)
A delicious petit cornet with sea urchin mousse was offered by Royal Argosy Cruises. (Source: MRNY)
A delicious petit cornet with sea urchin mousse was offered by Royal Argosy Cruises. (Source: MRNY)
Everything tastes better with the wines of Washington. Make a date for Taste Washington 2014. (Source: MRNY)
Everything tastes better with the wines of Washington. Make a date for Taste Washington 2014. (Source: MRNY)

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Mark Thompson
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Mark Thompson

A member of Authors Guild, Society of American Travel Writers (SATW), and New York Travel Writers (NYTW), Mark Thompson is an editor, journalist, and photographer whose work appears in various periodicals, including Travel Weekly, Metrosource, Huffington Post, Global Traveler, Out There, and OutTraveler. The author of the novels Wolfchild (2000) and My Hawaiian Penthouse (2007), Mark completed a Ph.D. in American Studies. He has been a Fellow and a resident at various artists' communities, including MacDowell, Yaddo, and Blue Mountain Center.

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