Kalamazoo: The Tastiest Chamber of Commerce Around

By Ken Slocum
Western Herald

On a blustery Thursday night in February, I ventured out to the Kalamazoo Country Club for their annual event, “Taste of the Chamber.” The event is comprised of many local businesses with samples of food for the public’s tasting pleasure.

As I entered the Kalamazoo Country Club parking lot, I was taken aback by how big of an ordeal the event actually was. My fiancé and I had a difficult time finding parking. If you plan on attending next year, I recommend arriving early.

Walking into the actual building, I was met with the upscale “country club feel.” We checked in at the front table and received name tags. From there, we proceeded into the banquet room where we were met with a few hundred people and fifteen vendors.

My fiancé and I both love food and were ready to get started. We found ourselves drawn to both the restaurants we had never visited as well as those that were independently owned.

The first table we visited was Zazios. Zazios is a modern Italian restaurant located right at the corner of the Kalamazoo Mall and Michigan Avenue. We tried both the beef brasato and the crab cake. The beef brasato was hearty and delicious, and made both of us wish we had more than the small plate. The crab cake was not quite like the New England Crab Cakes I was used to. This one had a crunch to it and had a nice little zing at the end.

Mangia Mangia was the next booth we visited. Mangia Mangia is an Italian restaurant located right on the mall. At this booth, we sampled chicken rotini with marsala sauce. This was a superb dish, but the pancetta stole the show. Pancetta is Italian bacon taken from the belly of the pig and is not smoked, but rather cured with salt and spices. This pancetta was rubbed in chili powder and dipped in chocolate. Pork, chocolate, and chili may seem like an unappetizing combination, but something about the initial sweet and then having my taste buds kicked in the teeth by the chili powder is just out of this world.

A newer restaurant in town, Fire Bowl Cafe, specializes in stir fry and was fairly tasty. I had the peanut sauce chicken and was impressed. The peanut sauce seemed similar to warm spicy peanut butter. My fiance tried the pineapple fried rice and this was a nice alternative for somebody who does not prefer spicy food.

Cityscape and Millennium Catering are a local company that own five restaurants around town, including The Union on Kalamazoo Mall. For their samples, they had an antipasto platter as well as steamed mussels. This was my first opportunity to have steamed mussels and I seized the moment. The mussels were well seasoned and tender. And for sitting out for a bit, they were not dry at all. In trying these, I may have found a new favorite food.

The last booth we stopped at was Pop’s Italian Beef and Sausage. Pop’s is a smaller outfit out of Chicago with their newest and only Michigan location in Kalamazoo. In my opinion, this booth stole the show. I may be a little biased, however, because I have not met an Italian sausage or Italian beef I didn’t like. The filling of the sandwich was super tasty and full of flavor. The sausage was well seasoned and the sauce was hearty. It was topped with a sweet pepper that really finished it off. The beef was equally as tasty and extra juicy. The part of this sample that really knocked it out of the park, so to speak, was the bread. As a foodie, it is quite hard to find a good loaf of bread with the tough crust and soft chewy middle. Well, Pop’s has it. The bread was spot on, and I would make the return trip to this event just for the bread. It had a great tough crust that you had to tear through to get to the rewarding, soft, chewy center that every foodie desires.

As my fiancé and I left the event with full stomachs and smiles on our faces, we reflected on our favorites of the evening. My fiancé chose Mangia Mangia, and I chose Pop’s.

Whatever your fancy as a food seeking person, you are sure to find it at Taste of the Chamber. If you find yourself having a free night when this is going on, I would highly recommend attending. At the very least, you’ll have a full belly.

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Posted by heraldstaff on Mar 1 2010. Filed under A & E. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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