Hmmmmm...scallops!

Last weekend was the 40th Annual Bourne Scallop Festival. It was a 3-day event and the organiser anticipated that at least 50,000 people would turn up for it. As we were in the vicinity on Friday, we decided to check it out early so as to avoid the crowd which was expected to thicken over the weekend. And it was so bright and sunny that day...just the perfect weather to attend such outdoor events!

When we reached the venue, we were happy to see only a small crowd. General admission fee was $5...and for $17/$19, one could get a chicken/scallop meal in addition to the admission fee. As RG and I already had lunch, we decided to only get one scallop meal ticket. 2 large tents had been set up for the event. 1 of them was for the "Professional Arts & Crafts Fair and Home Show" while the other was the food hall where one could buy food, sit down to eat and enjoy music from the live bands.

After a quick tour around the fair, we headed for the food hall eagerly as we were looking forward to the scallops. Patrons with the meal tickets were to proceed to one end of the food hall to collect their scallop/chicken dinners. There was hardly a queue and I managed to get my scallop meal almost immediately. The serving staff piled french fries, coleslaw, roll, butter and at least a dozen huge deep fried scallops onto the plate. I also had a choice of a soda which was sponsored by Coca-Cola. The serving staff told me that they had served over 3 tonnes of scallops during last year's event. That's a lot of scallops indeed! I had to walk very slowly to the table where RG was seated as I didn't want any scallops rolling off the plate.

There were other food stalls selling beer, wine, chowder, lobster rolls, raw seafood, hotdogs, burgers, strawberry pancakes etc. We couldn't resist buying a lobster roll ($15), scallop chowder ($5) and fried oysters (3 for $4) and IPA ($5 a cup). The lobster roll was kinda expensive but well worth the money because they stuffed so much lobster meat into the roll and it tasted so fresh and succulent. The scallop meal was just as mouthwatering as the scallops were really big and juicy. We ate while enjoying some country rock music from the band called Plymouth Fury.

We were absolutely stuffed after our big yummy meal...so we decided to take a walk around the outdoor amusement park. Many kiddie rides were brought in for the event and there were also game stores where you can try your hand at winning some really attractive prices such as very huge stuff toys. While we didn't take any rides or play any games, we enjoyed watching others do all those...and seeing the smiles on their faces.

We left before it got dark. It was a very interesting and fun experience for us. We definitely look forward to attending many more such events.