Taste of Old Pasadena

25 restaurants, good food. A lot of ice cream samples.
Some restaurants give a lot food and some give you a bite size samples.
Best restaurants: Café Santorini, White Horse Lounge and The Pie Hole.
Best ice cream: Cool Haus
Worst restaurant: Barcelona and Sorriso; they were out of food by the time we get there
(8:20 p.m.)

This was my first time at Taste of Old Pasadena, and I must say I had an amazing time! Online ticket sales closed a couple days prior to the event, but I had no problem getting tickets the day of — even though I got there at 6:30 and the event started at 5:30 pm! The map on the event’s website was very helpful (
). It lists the restaurants that have ticket sales ($ 30 per person), and they take plastics! They provided wristbands, a ticket, and a map.
This year there were 29 participating locations. However, 2 were connected (Bar Celona and Sorisso), and one I could not locate at all (iPic). I got pretty full after the first 5 stops already, so I think the $ 30 was worth it.
I loved Himalayan Café’s chicken tikka marsala and Sugar Fix’s smores bar. Café Santorini was my last stop, and the waiter was extremely friendly and amazing. The bartender at IX Tapa was funny, but the food was just average. (Since we went during happy hour, the martinis were $ 5. Then we found out later that on Tuesdays, Equator has $ 1 martinis!). The lady at Umami Burger was super helpful as well. I’ll definitely be coming back to those locations. The only non-​food place was the Dog Bakery, which was a great place for pet owners!
The 2 places I would not return: 1) At Vertical Wine Bistro, the hostesses told us we could choose anything on the happy hour menu. But the waitresses told us we were limited to fries and margherita pizza. After we sat for 5 minutes waiting for a waitress, the group before us told us they ordered fries and pizzas but they waited too long and were leaving. After another 5 minutes, we got the fries. After another 5 minutes, we left and let the next group get our pizza. 2) The worst place was Meat District Co. The guy seated us and never came back with menus or waters. In fact, nobody came around until I flagged someone down to get water for us. We left after 10 minutes of waiting.

So much food. Amazing.

Well I have to say as my 2^nd attending the taste of old pasadena I have to say I was stuffed! It was awesome the food is truly amazing. I was able to visit a few of my favorites like café santorini, slaters 50/​50, pita jungle, hot wings… And that’s to name a few of the places I visited last night out of 35 I was able to stop in at 21 which is pretty intense! The portions were amazing this year. Especially slaters ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ massive sample! The only down side to the whole event was that this year café bizou did not participae. :(I was so looking forward to those amazing stuffed mushrooms… They defiantly have to do it next year! Other than that it was another successful year! Thanks to all the restaurants that participated! See you all next year! For those of thinking to try new things and have some verity this is defiantly the perfect choice! Perfect date night! But why stop there! I recommend this every for everyone! Invite your friends and family and definitely wear comfy shoes!

Great idea, best: Santorini, ⁵⁰⁄₅₀
Everything else was just pasta, pizza, salad, and French fries.
21 choices was nice too.

This was an awesome event! Tickets were $ 30 per person with 100% of their proceeds going to local charity. We got to try sooo many new places. It’s totally worth it. Many of the restaurants that participated in this event are places you’ve probably driven by thousands of time but would never think to eat at. There was actually a huge variety of restaurants that spanned throughout old town Pasadena. You get to eat, walk and explore new places. Loved it.
Café Santorini had a full on buffet of hummus & bread, grilled vegetables, mussels and curry risotto– SO DELICIOUS! 21 Choices were offering full cups of their frozen yogurts, Slaters ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ were serving a quarter of their ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ burgers, which you may or may not know are humongous! 168 had a slow roasted pork ssam, Jake’s had a chili cheese fries bar, Three Dog Bakery gave out these awesome goodie bags filled with dog food and treats (seriously, awesome!) I didn’t realize Pasadena had so many Tibetan/​Nepal/​Indian restaurants. We went on a little Taste of Chicken Tikka Masala tour and stopped at 4 different restaurants that served it. The Melting Pot had delicious chocolate fondue… mmmmm the warm dark chocolate is to-​die-​for. Il Fornaio served pastas, bruschetta, calamari (my fav!) and a really good arugula salad. Caramel Apples at Temptations! Chili Pepper Truffles at Mignon Chocolate. Osek Korean had super spicy rice cakes to change up the palate a bit, Paparich gave samples of their famous roti buns, and I discovered my new favorite drink at Bird Pick– the Melon Drop.
Honestly, the list goes on. We didn’t even make it to all the restaurants because we were soooo full. Overall, a great event for a Tuesday night. It wasn’t too crowded, the weather was perfect and the customer service at all the restaurants we stopped at were super friendly. Big thanks to the restaurants for feeding us! And thanks to my sister for getting us tickets or else we would have easily passed on this event. Looking forward to the next one now! I’m just sad I missed the Unilocal check-​in booth for my Unilocal swag!