Food and fun, fun, fun

Young Chang

“A Taste of Newport” is more for visitors than Newport Beach

residents.

That’s because if you live in Newport Beach, it’s hard not to know

there’s a good restaurant around almost every corner.

The annual food and entertainment festival is for nonresidents who

need to be told where they can go for the best “Fandango Mango Chicken

Salad” or “Blackberry Brandy Barbecue Sauce Coconut Shrimp.”

“It’s a regional event, and that’s exactly what we want it to be,”

said Richard Luehrs, president of the Newport Harbor Area Chamber of

Commerce, which is hosting the 12th annual street fair today through

Sunday at Fashion Island.

“A Taste of Newport” will offer fare from about 35 Newport Beach

restaurants, 15 premium California wineries, ice cold beer, Bacardi

cocktails and entertainment, including the Beach Boys, Berlin, Kool and

the Gang and Wang Chung.

While chamber members prepared the final touches this week for an

anticipated crowd of 70,000, local chefs were busy too.

Tommy Bahama’s Tropical Cafe and Emporium, which serves tropical

American cuisine, built its menu from scratch, storing up pounds and

pounds of shrimp and battering it with coconuts.

The restaurant’s booth also will serve coconut shrimp with blackberry

brandy barbecue sauce, crab and onion bisque soups and key lime pie, said

manager Jane Mallol. It is the restaurant’s second time at the festival.

“There’s a versatile market out here,” she said. The street fair

“definitely gets the word out.”

Cowboy Newport Beach, a newcomer to the festival, will serve

barbecued-beef ribs with honey mustard sauce and a cherry wood-smoked

trout dip.

“We’re trying to make sure we don’t stretch ourselves too thin,” said

manager Mark Keller, explaining why he will serve only two dishes.

While the restaurant’s chefs cooked for the festival this week, its

design department set up a booth to look just like the main location.

“We’re trying to make sure that over the course of the weekend, we

give people an idea of what the restaurant is about,” Keller said.

Luehrs said “Taste of Newport” participants seem to have perfected the

art of displaying products so people will buy them.

In a city where $2.5 million of the annual sales-tax revenue is

generated from restaurants alone, this type of marketing know-how is

important.

Organizers, including Luehrs, first started the event because they saw

the need to market Newport Beach as a dining destination.

Over the years, the event gained enough fame to attract even the Beach

Boys, who will perform at 4 p.m. Sunday.

“Now it’s a large food and entertainment street party,” Luehrs said.

FYI

* WHAT: “A Taste of Newport”

* WHEN: 6 to 11 tonight, 4 to 11 p.m. Saturday and noon to 8 p.m.

Sunday

* WHERE: Fashion Island, 905 Newport Center Drive, Newport Beach

* COST: General admission is $12, including entertainment. Children

under 12 are admitted free Saturday and Sunday.

* CALL: (949) 729-4400.