Taste of Bloomington is a treat to the city

Community members demonstrated their penchant for local Bloomington cuisine Saturday during the 24th Annual Taste of Bloomington.\nAlso known around town as the Taste, thousands of Hoosiers, students and guests gathered at the Showers Commons in front of City Hall to dine on belly-filling finger foods and a wide array of palate-refreshing beverages. Forty-two local and national-chained restaurants offered everything from Louisiana cajun to gelato desserts to bottled Bloomington water before a late-evening rain shower sent community members scattering into the night.\nBloomington resident and Taste vendor Bob Crowley, owner of DATS On Grant, 211 S. Grant St., said he attended the event to introduce the flavor of Southern creole spices to community members otherwise not familiar with the taste of folk foods south of the Mason-Dixon line.\n"People are getting more into flavors than they used to be, and spice doesn't scare as many people," he said while standing above four steaming-hot pots of Louisiana-style stew filled with cajun-spice dishes like chili-cheese etouffee with crawfish and creole Indian dishes like black beans with caramelized corn. \nDATS On Grant replaced YATS On Grant in February 2006 when Crowley bought his business partner Joe's half of the restaurant, and Crowley said DATS offers community members other changes as well, like the shift to 12 daily menu offerings instead of the staple three or four as before YATS management changed hands.\n"Besides going out more and talking to people, any chance we have for a large number of people to try our product is no loss to us," he said. "I find letting people taste things is much better than running an ad in the newspaper."\nIn between local bands pumping rock music jams and other sweet serenading sounds to thousands of community members, the Waiter/Waitress Race attracted enthusiastic cheers and chants of "faster, faster" as B-97 disc jockey Pam Thrash commented on the action from the stage.\nContestants from nine local restaurants raced along a coned course while carrying a wine glass filled with water. After team members exchanged their serving trays similar to a relay-race baton, the wine glasses were emptied into a carafe until a judge declared the winning team's glass full to the top.\nThree heats were conducted and the winning from team each heat competed in the final race, in which the overall winner was declared by the popping of a champagne bottle cork.\nA team of four servers dressed in black from the Scotty's Brewhouse Bloomington, 302 N. Walnut St., took home the top prize of a trophy, hats, T-shirts and folding chairs after dancing in a rainfall of champagne. Siam House, 430 E. Fourth St., earned the runner-up trophy and a team from Malibu Grill, 106 N. Walnut St., earned third place.\nBloomington resident and IU alumni Adam Wason, a public affairs specialist for the Bloomington Utilities Department, said he was on-hand at the Taste to offer community members about 1,000 free bottles of city water to quench their thirst and hydrate their senses.\n"Hydration is key to keeping your head about yourself throughout the day," Wason said. "We just always meet and exceed all federal water quality standards. We have a high quality product and we like to acknowledge all the people who work, in part, to get good water out to the consumers. Warm days like today require lots of cold water."\nSome community members baked under the sun as the Taste day temperatures registered around 90 degrees before a brief rain shower closed the event about two hours early. A portion of the proceeds benefited the Hoosier Hills Food Bank and the Bloomington-based Community Kitchen, although the amount of community member donations lost to Mother Nature were unknown by press time.\nBloomington resident Tony Grubesic, who "relocated" to town from Cincinnati with his expectant wife Kelly two days before, said he attended the Taste Saturday to sample local cuisine and to get a feel for the local people. He said he attended the Farmers Market Saturday morning and his family was "impressed" with Bloomington thus far.\n"I would like a pulled-pork sandwich from that one barbeque place if I can find it," he said before he dipped a colorful tortilla chip into a plate of spinach artichoke dip his wife acquired from the Malibu Grill Taste tent. "After that we plan on going home to the air conditioning and to relax with a beer."\n"Well he is," Kelly Grubesic said while rubbing her pregnant belly. "I'm about to have a Hoosier baby"