Check, Please Arizona Festival

Fantastic event! This review is long overdue. This year was my second year attending Check Please AZ at Cityscape. The sample portions are huge at every station. The lines can be long, but they go fast since everything is just grab and go. All the best restaurants get together that were featured on the show and completely spoil us!
My favorite this year was Amy’s Baking Company. She featured sweet and savory options, but her sweet treats were my favorite!
If you are a foodie and lover of local cuisine I highly recommend experiencing this event.

I am not sure what some expect from an OUTDOOR food event. Although restaurants should try to show off their signature dishes, the logistics and circumstances are not ideal.
So maybe I am ‘easier’ to please than some, but I have been to quite a few of these events and this was FAR from being a bad one… Most did not run out of food, at least at 1:00 when I left and for the most part did a good job. A few, I was surprised by the lack of quality and if I was going to do one of these I would make sure it was not a NEGATIVE experience.
Two that I thought were not very good are long time fixtures in Phoenix and I could not help but wonder what were they thinking! I know the next time someone suggests we go to one of those two, I will probably pass!
All in all, I would go back.

Just got home from the festival and I had to write my first Unilocal review due to my utter disappointment with this event. Perhaps I have been spoiled by attending Devour for the past 3 years and having an awesome time but this event left much to be desired. Let me first say that the weather was unbearably hot which isn’t their fault although it would be wiser to book the event earlier to avoid this.
Second, there were very few restaurants compared to Devour and the price was the same (if purchased in advance). When I bought the tickets a couple of weeks ago there were quite a few more restaurants that were supposed to be attending. Had I seen the actual list of attending restaurants, I would not have purchased tickets.
The worst part was the food the restaurants offered (supposedly their signature dishes) was very disappointing. And not only that but Eddie’s House must just think they can rest on their laurels and not even try because all they had at 2 pm (the event lasted til 4) was a boring couscous salad that I could have whipped up in 2 minutes. And they had vacated the premises as well (I got the last sample that was just sitting on the table). Really poor presentation. If you’re going to show up and be part of the event then give it your all or stay home. I certainly have no desire to go to their restaurant.
The wine being served was from Southern Wine and Spirits I believe and while the pours were great, the selection was very run of the mill.
I’m a huge fan of PBS and Channel 8 so I really hate to give this a bad review but I feel they have a lot of improving to do if they want to continue with this event. The price was way too high for what was presented. Overall a HUGE disappointment.

For a the First Time Check Please Festival over all most things ran well and lines were very short and we had plenty of room to find a spot to snack. I liked that bottled water was available but I didn’t notice hand washing stations.
As far as the food it was a pork lovers paradise with not all but most restaurants were featuring pork. So if you don’t eat pork you were pretty screwed. Even my husband who is a very big pork lover said it was way too much pork for him too.
They also had many wine stations pouring generous glasses of wine. The wines I tried weren’t the highest end but also wasn’t as low end as you get at other tasting festivals I’ve been too.
I didn’t taste everything but between me and my husband we tried a lot. For me the majority of food put out was OK but not much really was over the top. One of the stand outs maybe the very best taste I had at the festival was the Eclaire Dessert from Amuse Bouche. I wasn’t exspecting my best taste to be a dessert. It was the only thing I really thought about going back for a second but I didn’t. After that it made Tarbel’s Chocolate Mousse seem very weak. But I do Note Tarbel’s made a very nice Plate of Pork Mole Tacos and the also did very good Oysters. I also liked the Tikka Masala Pasty from Cornish Pasty Company. It had nice flavors and a little spice and the chicken was good and it was the only chicken at the festival besides Petite Maison’s Chicken Liver Mousse. I thought the Liver Mousse had the perfect flavors but I couldn’t decide if I liked Chicken Liver with that smooth texture. But that’s just me and most people I spoke to felt different. I think everyone would like the Crispy Eggplant and Ooey Gooey Butter Cake from Phoenix City Grill. I didn’t think I’d like the butter cake because it looked too sweet but it was just right. Someone else did also do the same cake but their’s was too sweet. I wasn’t going to try the red velvet ice cream soda from MacAlpines but a woman tasting next to me said it was amazing so I tried it and was pleasantly surprised. It really was good and was the best ice cream soda I ever had.
I think my husband’s favorite was the Shugrue’s Gumbo and Tarbel’s Oysters.
A few restaurants might have been out of their element doing a festival for the first time and what I tasted at a few places might not have been a true representation of what they do but most really did a good job.
Did I get my money’s worth? I don’t know but it was OK.