A Tasty Taste of Wheaton

I attended my first Taste of Wheaton today with a few friends, and it was a good time.  Lots of people there enjoying the nice weather, good food, and questionable music (we had a drum circle as background music the entire hour we were there). 

Here are some reviews of the 'tastes' we had today:
Pollo Sabroso:  I had a tasty chicken pupusa with tangy cole slaw and red sauce (fairly good as far as pupusas go) with a side of fried yucca (good, but not super crispy).  My boyfriend also got some fried chicken that he enjoyed.

Hollywood East:  We had a number of smaller dim sum items from them - a baked pork bun, steamed pork bun, spring rolls, pork dumpling and a sweet sesame ball.  Both pork buns had yummy barbequed pork inside, and I really liked the sesame ball, which was filled with a sweet bean paste.  Based on the tasty food we had today, checking out the new incarnation of Hollywood East is high on our list.

Global African Cafe (an amusing website, especially if you click on 'menu'):  I got the last meat pie (sorry to Good Eatin' in Wheaton for buying the last one) and the chicken yassa.  The meat pie had a crispy shell and was filled with ground beef and spices.  It had some heat to it, but wasn't super spicy.  The chicken yassa was moist stewed chicken on the bone with carrots, peas, and onions on the broth.  Again, spices gave it a little bit of heat, but not much.  Based on what we had, we'll definitely be heading over to their restaurant sometime to try out some other dishes.

Marchones:  We all shared some mini cannolis, which were a nice sweet break from all the savory food we were having.

IHOP:  We just got some lemonade from them.  We sat near the stand to eat some food and noticed that the funnel cakes they were frying were pre-cooked and sitting in a plastic bag.  If they had been making funnel cakes with fresh batter, we would have probably gotten one.  Still, it was a better idea than trying to get people to buy pancakes at a street festival.

Los Cobanos:  This was the last place we stopped by, and were getting pretty full by this point, so I just got the chicken tamale.  After eating some amazing tamales in Mexico last year, I've been on a quest to find tamales around here that rival the ones I had on my trip.  So far, Samantha's in Silver Spring has been the best.  The tamale from Los Cobanos was still wrapped in the banana leaf when I got it and had a nice smooth texture.  It wasn't as good as the ones from Samantha's, but not bad for street food during a festival.

On deck for dinner tonite...an exploratory mission to Cabanita on Elkin Street.