Deconstructed BLT ( The Deconstructed Dish ): Pork Belly , tomato jam , and a soft poached egg . This ain ’ t your grandmother ’ s BLT . This dish takes each individual component and intensifies the flavors . It definitely doesn ’ t look like a BLT , but it sure tastes as good as one .
Artful Peanut Butter Cake ( Sunshine Seasons ): Peanut butter cake with artistic decorations . How beautiful is this cake ? If the Festival of the Arts had a cake-based icon , it would be this .
Trio of Savory Croissant Doughnuts ( The Painter ’ s Palate ): Whipped Boursin ® garlic and fine herbs cheese ; chicken salad with shaved fennel ; and spicy tuna with wasabi and seaweed salad . Lovely to look at and even better to eat . The trio was great , but I would have gladly had three servings of the tuna .
Deconstructed Reuben ( The Deconstructed Dish ): corned beef , sauerkraut , Jarlsberg , and thousand island dressing . You ’ ve never seen a sandwich look like this before . While I generally like a Rueben , and while this dish looked incredible , this is a perfect example of why the Festival of the Arts is not my favorite for dining . I wish a little more effort went into how this dish tasted as opposed to how it looked . It wasn ’ t bad ; it ’ s just that the presentation was top-notch while the flavor felt more like an afterthought .
TOP : Deconstructed BLT — my top pick for Festival of the Arts . PHOTO BY COURTNEY REYNOLDS . MIDDLE : The artful peanut butter cake is as delicious as it is pretty . PHOTO BY LAURIE SAPP . BOTTOM : The deconstructed Reuben is amazing for Instagram but only OK for actually eating . PHOTO BY COURTNEY REYNOLDS