{"id":2416,"date":"2016-07-31T11:02:26","date_gmt":"2016-07-31T15:02:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/santacruzfoodie.com\/?p=2416"},"modified":"2016-07-31T11:14:53","modified_gmt":"2016-07-31T15:14:53","slug":"taste-of-orleans-food-festival-at-great-america-through-tonight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/santacruzfoodie.com\/?p=2416","title":{"rendered":"Taste Of Orleans food festival at Great America through tonight"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Crawfish

Crawfish etoufee from Taste of Orleans Food Festival at Great America<\/p><\/div>\n

There is a fun and delicious Taste of Orleans festival at California\u2019s Great America<\/a>, and you have one more day to enjoy it. The weekend-only festival began July 23-24 and continues this weekend July 30-31. I had the opportunity to experience it yesterday, and want to share some details.<\/p>\n

For the festival, the Orleans section of the park features Southern and Cajun cuisine, live music and themed decorations. There was a band playing good jazz at lunchtime Saturday.<\/p>\n

With the Southern and Cajun food, some selections are available a la carte or you can sample six different dishes for $25 if you buy a tasting card: Creole meatballs, chicken\/sausage gumbo, red beans and rice, crawfish etouffee, bourbon honey BBQ sauce chicken wings, and beignets. There are food stands set up within a short distance of each other; as you order each Cajun delicacy, a staff member punches your card. You can choose to try them one after the other, or stagger them during your visit (perhaps during lunch and dinner time, as I chose to do).<\/p>\n

The Creole meatballs were my favorite. Each order had three plump, savory meatballs with a choice of barbecue or spicy sauce. I was with two family members so for our three orders totaling nine meatballs we tried one order plain, one with barbecue sauce, and one with spicy sauce. They were all really good. The gumbo was also very satisfying; I\u2019m not sure if that one or the crawfish etoufee was my second favorite. For the etoufee, you could order this savory stew over plain white rice or atop a hot dog on a bun with Creole mustard.<\/p>\n

Even though it was a summer Saturday, we didn\u2019t have to stand in much of a line for any of the food \u2013 this included lunch around 12:30 \u2013 1 p.m. and then an early dinner around 5:30.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As part of the festivities, the park is also featuring a chalk artist painting Mardi Gras murals, mask decorating for kids 12-and-under, and stilts walkers who distribute colorful beads a couple times during the evening. Plus, there are fireworks at 9:45 p.m.<\/p>\n

We did have to stand in relatively long lines for some rides, but that\u2019s expected during the popular season, and I was surprised that some lines were fairly quick. It was my first time visiting Great America and I\u2019m excited to return. There are lots of rides for kids\u2014Planet Snoopy<\/a> was great for my five-year-old, including a short outdoor show that I enjoyed too (I\u2019ve always been a big Peanuts fan) and the park has more thrilling options, too (like the log ride). Then there\u2019s the whole Boomerang Bay water park that we didn’t get a chance to explore; next time we will bring bathing suits.<\/p>\n

All in all, I\u2019m very glad I heard about this debut Taste of Orleans festival \u2013 it was the perfect, and it turns out scrumptious, excuse to make it to Great America!<\/p>\n

For all park details, visit the web site at https:\/\/www.cagreatamerica.com.<\/p>\n

Follow me on:<\/p>\n

Twitter @santacruzfoodie<\/a><\/p>\n

Instagram @tarafatemiwalker<\/a><\/p>\n

Facebook @santacruzfoodieexaminer<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is a fun and delicious Taste of Orleans festival at California\u2019s Great America, and you have one more day to enjoy it. The weekend-only festival began July 23-24 and continues this weekend July 30-31. I had the opportunity to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,80],"tags":[1009,1304,1303],"class_list":["post-2416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","category-food-food-news","tag-cajun-food","tag-californias-great-america","tag-great-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/santacruzfoodie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/santacruzfoodie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/santacruzfoodie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/santacruzfoodie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/santacruzfoodie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2416"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/santacruzfoodie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2419,"href":"https:\/\/santacruzfoodie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2416\/revisions\/2419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/santacruzfoodie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/santacruzfoodie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/santacruzfoodie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}