They are horrible people the "owners" are the worst. They lie to peopel at every point in the…read moreprocess, they use volunteers* Legally cons are now required to pay staff if they are for profit and yes they are for profit ven if that means they scam people by Never running ads they promise Promising things they will never do/give WORST CON IN SEATTLE and that is saying something

This was the absolute worst waste of money. I was charged $45 dollars to enter and walk around a…read moresmall ballroom filled with vendors that were selling fabric patches for your clothing and random sculptures. There was NO makeup or Special FX booths or demos. It took all of about 5 min to walk the room and realize that I had just paid $45 bucks for nothing. Super bummed. I thought for sure Seattle would have more to offer. Do not go.

They weren't able to handle logistics. Waited 1 hr 20 to catch return bus then have to wait…read moreanother 50 for water taxi. Spent 4 hrs commuting to attend festival for 2 hrs

Really a great local fest. The whole community comes together. There are so many events it's hard…read moreto keep track. The friday night beer garden was fantastic this year with rocking until late at night. The parade is like the Fremont Solstice parade without the pretentious nudists. I love watching all my neighbors marching through the street with pride. I was a little underwhelmed by the vendors this year. Not a lot of good arts and crafts and a lot of cheap, carnival style junk. Some good food though. The booth with the Seafood Cocktail was great as were the pastrami sandwich and Gyros booths. Makes me really proud that I moved to Vashon.

Thoroughly enjoyed The Coast Starlight which was in a word, "heavy"…read more They said it was 100 minutes without intermission which made me antsy at first, but the acting was enthralling; rendering me mesmerized with the characters and their interactions from start to end- the time flew by. Very relatable. Love me some train action. Didn't love the borrowed Catholic HS theater, but it'll do in a pinch. Enjoyed another fun play this past summer performed outdoors in a beautiful botanical garden on a warm evening sharing a picnic. That production, The Guardsman, was definitely entertaining & enjoyable, but less professionally polished, in a word, silly. For sure do recommend BAT in general for affordable, engaging productions. A plus that it's in the SW neighborhood!

I am not sure we (Burien) realize how great of talent we pull in this little city of ours. The BLT…read morehas been putting on plays, musicals and all around interesting performances since the 50's and they are still going strong. I love the fact that just down the street you can go to a live show in a theater house that has that "this building has some stories it could tell' kinda smell to it. If you keep an eye out for them they often do a dinner and a show special with a neighborhood restaurant and you can get a really good deal for a date night.

The Center has improved since my last review, and the changes are positive overall. I still hope to…read moresee expanded hours and a remodel of the main level to better match the upstairs rental hall. The main level feels disorganized, with folding chairs, folding tables, and mismatched furniture. I feel for the new restaurant operator, Lorenzo Rizzo, who has to work with a small, inconveniently located kitchen and an awkward dining layout. With better planning, the Center could become a strong café and community space. While most events still cater to a small segment of the community, the Seahawks viewing party was a positive outreach effort. The Honorary Consulate remains of limited help to the Italian community due to impractical hours and slow responses. Better integration with the Center, such as aligning consular hours with café days, would improve its usefulness. The retail space has improved, but I would prefer more unique Italian specialty items rather than products commonly found in supermarkets.

Stopped by again today to learn to play the Italian card game Scopa. An instructor named Paolo was…read moresuper friendly and helped us to learn this classic card game. We met new people and reacquainted with old friends and enjoyed some seriously delish cornettis and espresso and mochas! We had an apricot and chocolate cornetti each and really had a fun time here today. Great place to stop by whether you're Italian or not!

This particular Chinatown International District event - which usually occurs around the time of…read morethe Moon Festival - has been around since 2006 though I've gone here starting back in 2011. Past night markets have spanned throughout King St starting from - but not including - 7th Ave all the way down to 5th Ave, spanning outwards on 5th, 6th and Maynard to the blocks touching both Weller and Jackson Streets. This year (and several other years before that) there were no fair contents on the stretch of Maynard touching Weller. Basically, there's 6 blocks of food and merchandise vendors for night market goers to enjoy, and there's less content year after year. Logistics wise, people come and go throughout the fair, though this day was particularly crowded because of two home games in both T-Mobile Park and Lumen Field occurring within the time frame of the night market. It gets very, very crowded the closer you get to the end as certain performances are scheduled within that time. I don't mind this though, since crowds where you're shoulder to shoulder with others is what night markets in this continent are all about. As with previous years after 2018 or so, the main stage is at Hing Hay Park instead of the parking lot at 6th and King close to Jolidaze and Oasis. I actually miss having the stage at its former location, but Hing Hay Park is definitely more aesthetically calming for big performances. If you want to watch performances, you should come here early to snag a spot, or hope people leave so you can get a spot where you can see better. Food wise, there's more local Seattle (or at least WA-state native) eateries than what was in this year's nonlocally diluted Bite of Seattle: - I started off getting spicy mango takoyaki from a stand very close to Bao Box (based in Covington, WA), though both stands share the same POS system to order from. Takoyaki is standard, and the spice hits hard but much later than you think. I wish I could have tasted more mango in the mango sauce, though. - The mango coconut smoothie from Mangosteen (which used to be in Chinatown) is pure heaven! It was relatively warm this year so this drink especially hit the spot. - I also got some pandan waffles from a Seattle-based stand called Dragonfly. They sell Vietnamese waffle mixes along with the waffles of those flavors themselves. I love pandan flavor on waffles, so this was a big hitter for me as well. Entertainment wise, I'm divided on this since I'm considering years of attending this event. The lion dances from Mak Fai are always fun to see year after year, and though I missed this year's Apex Diabolo performance in person I'm sure they were really mesmerizing to watch as they always are. Honestly, I would much prefer watching the dancing competitions from The Beacon back then instead of the K-pop random dance play event this year, both of which occur as the last performance of this event. I did, however, have some fun at the variety show and got to listen to some awesome local API artists sing their hearts out; it makes me miss more of the singing that used to take up slightly more time slots on entertainment in past years. Unlike the Bite of Seattle, I'm down to come back here year after year regardless of the lack of changes with the vendors. There's a ton of local eats, merch booths are very interesting, and we still have an eclectic set of performances to boot. This event isn't something worth staying the whole duration for, but you can enjoy yourself and the crowds very easily here.

Looking for summer fun, entertainment, eats, and getting smoked out by all the grilled eats?!…read more.. come to the ID during this festival! My friend and I were eager to try all the sweet and savory eats while being entertained by the on stage pop locking / breakdancing. Be prepared for the crowds! The space is limited to a few blocks leaving little room to move about and few places to find refuge. Wonderful smells from all the eats offers temptations, whilst the smoke from the grilled eats literally 'crowds' you :0/ thankfully industrial fans were about Overall a great experience! Hopefully next festival will offer more areas to escape

The Dragon Fest was once a day time summer event, focused on the Chinatown portion. Because of…read moreCOVID this year, it's instead evolved into a day and night C-ID Night Market, representing all of Chinatown-International District - an 8-hour event from 1pm to 9pm. I must say I am impressed with the turnout. While it has always been well attended, we arrived at 8:50pm, expecting to see a mostly closed street fair. Instead, all the booths are still hopping. Shoppers are shopping, and eaters are ordering food and drinks. There may have been such a HUGE turnout that the food lines were very long. When we arrived so late, the vendors were still merrily cooking while some food trucks had "sold out" stickers on selected items. How exciting for them to make up for the losses during COVID closures. As this is a C-ID market, the crowds gravitating towards the booths that sold cute Asian themed items, east Asian to be exact. Food choices were also predominately Asian, including SE Asian. I am not complaining. Hehe. The food truck that caught my attention is YS Street Food Group selling their Sizzling Squid at $12. I also bought a Thai Iced Tea at $4. It's been at least 2 years since I had their well marinating tongue numbing mala squid. It's also very tender. I love it! Folks were buying 3 or more of them! Their Thai iced tea is quite good too, not too sweet and flavorful. Even though we just had a big dinner, we managed to consume more. LOL!

For what could have become a hectic food festive the people who organized the event did a great…read morejob. There were performances every 30 minutes and the groups that performed clearly practiced and put on a show. There were a lot of places to eat and the food walk that offered $3 menu options were awesome. I was so happy to be able to try places like Tai tung and kau kau bbq which were places on my list. There were a lot of vendors and stalls and I was super impressed by the dragon dances! One thing I will say is I think they would do a lot better if they put their informational booth more prominently as a lot of people asked me where to get the maps and food walk pamphlets I was looking at in passing. Overall will be back next year!

Attended the Live Aloha Hawaiian Cultural Festival over the weekend at Seattle Center. This is the…read morefestival's 6th year. I found this year's event to be the best edition so far. The festival has grown for the better. Compared with a past edition that I attended, this year's event had significantly more food vendors and entertainment. If you wanted to try Hawaiian barbecue, shave ice and malasadas in Seattle (in one place), this event is your best opportunity to do so. As for entertainment, there were three stages (two outdoor and one in the Armory). As well as a side stage in the Armory for "talk story" events. I thought the attendance for the event was quite large compared to other heritage festivals that I have been to at Seattle Center. There was plenty of people wearing Hawaiian aloha wear at the event and talking in pidgin that you felt a little like you were actually back in the islands. Being a Hawaii native, it was nice to see that there was a large turnout celebrating the place that I call my real home. Like being in Hawaii, there was a wait for food. Though the lines for Hawaiian barbecue did move rather quickly. The fare was plate lunch grinds and most of the vendors were selling many of the same things. I had a great laulau/kalua pork/ahi poke plate from Kama'Aina Grill that was delicious. If you like grilled marinated meats, attending this festival is an awesome event to get some. I did also try out the shave ice from Da Hula Hut. There was a large line for it, but I decided it was worth waiting for given the summer heat. The shave ice was not bad (syrups are sweet), though better in Hawaii. It is no Waiola Shave Ice, but I will take what I can get. There was also a long line for malasadas, but that was a line I refused to get in. I will just wait till I can get some at Leonard's in a few weeks. I would have liked though to have seen a Hawaiian cake vendor (haupia/chantilly/guava) at the event though since we do have a few of these in the Northwest. Enjoyed my time at Live Aloha and look forward to coming back next year for more Hawaiian culture and food.

I love going to events of my home state, here in Washington state! No, this is no cheesy luau event…read morecultural appropriation everywhere. This event got almost everything, besides the weather and REAL beaches to cure those home sicknesses. Food was delicious, I got a chicken pastele stew plate with passion orange guava Hawaiian Sun and poi mochi. Hawaiian music to put you into that feel good vibe, made me reminisce about Birthday Bash at the Shell. Wish the event more into the middle of summer, especially, not the first week of the NFL. My fantasy team still got the W, though. But I'd still go, every year! Cheeeee!

I attended this event on Saturday, Feb. 24, 2018 at the Bell Harbor International Conference…read moreCenter, on 2211 Alaskan Way, Seattle. I heard so much great things about this event and I was asked by my friends to join this year. This was my first time and there was really nothing memorable other than standing out in the cold with my $85+tax ticket and then to find out that the place is jam-packed with people like Black Friday Walmart once you make your way inside. I am not sure how people can drink (alcoholic beverages) and carry around fancy restaurant catered food through multiple floors and thousands of people. The whole experience reminded me of a being in a club, actually worse. Coat check was free and that was the only good part. There were two volunteers, an elder lady and a young gentleman from Northwest Harvest and they were very kind and efficient. The venue itself made it extremely difficult to navigate through different food /spirits /wine tables. I heard many people (whom I assume attended previous events) complaining that "this is F***ed up. They shortened the time (from 1-5pm to 2-5pm for general admission and raised the price; and VIP admission is from 1-5pm with $110 price tag per ticket); and they really need to bring this back to Seattle Exhibition Center (where everything was on one large floor, not divided into 3 different areas / 2 different floors).!!" As for the wine and food "experience" nothing stood out. I did not even see Chateau St. Michelle or Columbia Winery. Probably explains a lot when those big name vendors didnt bother signing up this year. Most of wineries featured were young wineries that I had absolutely no interest in trying. I did enjoy DeLille Cellars and Corliss; and 4 wineries that made out to Seattle from Oregon (Lange and Duck Pond to name a couple). There is no way you could enjoy all the wine and food they offer in 3 hours when it takes 30-minutes to get in and they start quickly clearing everything around 4:40pm. So you basically have 2:30-4:30 to fight your way through the crowd and dont even really get to chat with wineries about how their wine is barrelled or aged. This is not the experience I was looking for and I actually enjoyed the cheaper event I went a year ago at the McCaw Hall. I dont need fancy food if I can barely get any tasting of wines which is what I really came for. Oh here are photos I took of Top Pot doughnuts table; and two bottles of Wine I enjoyed.

This review is for POP! Seafood 2017 only. I was actually very excited about it and it was kind of…read morea let down. There were more wines/champagnes than food. I am a seafood lover, but not necessarily very comfortable in the raw seafood territory. Most of the stalls had types of poke and lots and lots of raw oysters. I think I was expecting more of crabs/lobsters which I did not see. It's definitely a fun event. It has a cocktail party ambience and dress code. Make sure you carry your printed pass and Id. They have a coat checkin at the entrance. If you like raw oysters you would love it. But I would still argue it's not worth $85 per person. There is only so much alcohol I can take to get buzzed yet stay in my feel good zone. Grand tasting would better suit my taste buds. For next time!