Jenny's Noodle

©Jenny's Noodle, 2010

The 13th annual Arts, Beats & Eats is being held Labor Day Weekend, September 3-6, 2010, and for the first time, the summer festival is taking place in Downtown Royal Oak, Michigan. For those who aren't familiar with the event, it offers Arts—a highly ranked juried Fine Arts Show; Beats—more than 200 performances on ten stages; and Eats—53 local restaurants offering some of the finest cuisine in metro Detroit.

Dan with Mr. Chef. ©Jenny's Noodle, 2010

When we first arrived at AB&E, we opted to go with $15 parking in one of the larger structures—a little costly, but totally worth not having to deal with waiting for shuttles, street parking tickets, etc. Entry into the festival was $3 per adult. Food tickets were $10 for 16 tickets and food items ranged anywhere from 1 to 8 tickets each. Drinks were typically 6 tickets, except alcohol and smoothies which were 9-13 tickets (not worth it, we decided).

First taste of the day - vegetable tortellini. ©Jenny's Noodle, 2010

There were a few free food samples -- I found spicy shrimp and vegetable tortellini. While typical carnival snacks were available (confession: I bought a bag of pink cotton candy on the way out because I had 6 tickets to spare), it was fun to try so many different restaurant-quality things. Some of the items I tasted included: breaded lemon chicken skewers, vegetable lo mein, spinach pie, pizza, chocolate covered strawberries and apple crumble. My favorite dish of the day had to be the grilled cheese sandwich from Café Muse. I've been meaning to try the sandwich since it was featured on Oprah, and it was just as good as Gayle King described.

Even Big Boy had a great time. ©Jenny's Noodle, 2010

As for the beats, we missed the big-named performers (I would've liked to have seen Macy Gray). However, there was a hip-hop dance group that we watched for a bit and an entertaining duo of kids that couldn't have been more than thirteen-years-old. For the most part, the stages were positioned off on side streets so the speakers didn't blow out anyone's eardrums when they were just trying to buy themselves a Diet Pepsi.

The arts section was okay, of course not as extensive as the Ann Arbor Art Fair, but there were definitely a few booths of creative merch that caught my eye.

Overall, Arts, Beats & Eats was a really fun way to spend a Labor Day Monday off. I'm glad the event moved to Royal Oak and I look forward to attending the 2011 festival.

Note to self: Wear pants with an elastic waist next year!

Visit www.artsbeatseats.com for more info.