2040 Wehrle Dr., Williamsville, NY 14221
Web: WNY Lebanese Festival
Phone: 716.634.0669
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Alcohol Drinks Lebanese Lockport Williamsville Wine
"The stars of the bunch were Farina Macaroons, grainy orange-colored logs with wonderful sweetness and a course, floury texture as an alternative to the more traditional coconut."
If you've ever tried "Buffalo Wings" outside of Western New York, where all sorts of crazy chicken concoctions masquerade as our hometown specialty, you know this already: authenticity matters. Authenticity is the difference between experiences that please novices and ones that thrill experts, the distinction between puffery and fulfillment of a great promise. This weekend, we had two experiences on opposing sides of the authenticity scale, a visit to Western New York's Lebanese Festival 2009, and a stop at Lockport, New York's Spring Lake Winery. We've grouped them together because of what they collectively represent about the dining and drinking experiences available in this area, authentic or not.
Eleventh Annual Lebanese Festival 2009. If you're reading this, there's a good chance that you're thinking of attending the 2010 Lebanese Festival, which will likely follow in 2009's footsteps as a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday event on the grounds of the St. John Maron Church in Williamsville. Be aware of two things up front: first, don't show up late on Sunday and expect to find huge stocks of food you hoped to try - attendees here know how to eat. Second, they also know how to party. We've visited the Polish Dyngus Day, the Italian Festival, and plenty of other food festivals over the years, but St. John Maron's Lebanese Festival in our view did the best job of creating an ethnically authentic atmosphere to eat, drink, and feel entertained.
It doesn't do this with a lot of flash, or with anywhere near the square footage of those other festivals, which run for city blocks. You won't even find the standard collection of separate restaurants, where places compete to try and win your dollars, and you try to see how many of them you can stuff into your stomach in a two-hour period. Instead, the Lebanese Festival starts with an open courtyard where kids can play in a bounce house and enjoy carnival games, then continues into a huge tent with foods sold by the ticket, another tent with plenty of seating and a live band, and yet another that serves as a beer and wine garden. It's impossible to escape from the sound of the band playing, and unlike other festivals we've attended, we didn't want to: the powerful, upbeat Middle Eastern music was infectious, and fun to hear in the background. Families danced in front of the stage in the main seating tent, and kids walked around with cell phones, making "I'm busy at a cool party" phone calls. We were too busy eating to call anyone.
Most of the food is donated by local people and merchants, whose names appear on small signs, so you're not actually buying items from restaurants - these are authentically prepared items, sometimes made in home kitchens, and seemingly by people who actually know what they're doing. Their menus are extremely straightforward, one-sheet collections of images of foods posted both at stands and at 50-cent ticket booths: one advertised three Lebanese wrap sandwiches - falafel, kafta, and labni - while another offered six appetizers and two entrees, and still another had seven desserts. Looking around a little, we found a handful of other items: freshly made Sajj and Zataar breads, a table offering Lebanese Cheese, and a grilling table with hot dogs and hamburgers for kids. Unlike other festivals we've attended recently, the entree prices weren't cheap, reflecting full-sized portions: 20 tickets ($10) bought the two-skewer Kabob Platter with rice and pita bread, while 14 tickets bought the Loubieh Platter, a meat and vegetable plate that was out of stock by the time we arrived. But everything else was more affordable, such that six appetizers, including plates of Hummus, Kibbi, and Tabouli, were going for a more reasonable 8 tickets each, and most desserts were being sold for only 3 tickets.
We went with what we could get. A triangular Spinach Pie was large, hot, crispy on the outside, and entirely moist on the inside, yielding to reveal soft ribbons of lemony spinach, what appeared to be a gooey cheese, and pastry dough, all of which we loved. Tabouli, a generous green plate of minced parsley, mint, onions, tomatoes, and bulgur wheat pieces, was bursting with lemon and olive oil flavors, tasting light and healthy. It was served with pita slices, but we ate most of it using torn-off shreds of the Sajj bread (3 tickets), a large, thin and floppy sheet of crepe-like dough. Two of us shared the Kabob platter, which was pretty good - the chicken was fresh off the grill and tender, but a little too modestly flavored for our liking, though it came with a wonderful bed of slightly buttered rice. We washed it all down with a bottle of Almaza, a light yet sharp premium Lebanese beer, which we liked.
And then there were the desserts. We'd been itching to try some homemade "Bakalava," but it was - surprise - out of stock - so we grabbed at least one of several items, starting with two heavily sugar-powdered semolina flour and nut cookies called Ma'mouls. Still soft in their yellow insides, these were unquestionably good; the one dry, ring-shaped Sesame Cookie we tried was fine but not as intensely flavored or memorable. The stars of the bunch were Farina Macaroons, grainy orange-colored logs with wonderful sweetness and a course, floury texture as an alternative to the more traditional coconut. It would have been all but impossible to go wrong with any of the sweets here; we only wish we'd arrived earlier to sample more options.
What had occupied us earlier that day was a visit to Lockport's Spring Lake Winery, which some readers may recall was amongst only six wine and cider vendors at this year's Taste of Buffalo. Earlier in the week, we'd stopped by this winery to pick up pints of Mercer's Wine Ice Cream, and found the place to be so interesting that we decided to pay it a full visit on the weekend. Spring Lake, it turns out, has been built literally right next to train tracks, and offers something called the Vineyard Express Excursion - a six-hour, $45-per-person train ride from Lockport to Medina and back again, stopping first at the Medina Railroad Museum, and then at Spring Lake for lunch and wine tasting, before depositing you back at your car. We were intrigued and spent the day Sunday giving it a whirl.
For train and history buffs, the train ride portion of the Vineyard Express Excursion is worthwhile. The Medina Railroad Museum at end of the track is clearly a labor of love, with a truly massive, shockingly detailed miniature train set at its center, and a football field-length collection of relics from the past - massive railroad wrenches, shiny gold conductors' pocket watches, and posters, amongst many other items - all around the edges. With a little more organization and insight into the various pieces on display, this Museum could easily be a draw for a more extended period of time, but the hour it's allotted on the Excursion is just about right given how it's set up right now.
Spring Lake Winery. By comparison, Spring Lake Winery turned out to be a somewhat dismaying part of the experience, though it was designed with an impressive eye for detail by someone who clearly knows what they're doing from a promotional standpoint. Gravel roads and paths lead through acres of grape vines to a modern, attractive building - arguably the nicest we've seen in all of the area's wine trail - and when you arrive with the Vineyard Express, a band is playing old standbys on one side of the building. There's a simple baked chicken lunch offered out back for ticket holders only, and open table seating is offered in a forested area off to the Winery's side, next to the titular lake. Everything looks nice and clean. The chicken's from Chiavetta's, so it's quite good, too, albeit uncharacteristically unvinegared.
So what's wrong here? As it turns out, Spring Lake Winery isn't actually serving Western New York wine, and apparently hasn't been since it opened two years ago. Look closely at the vineyard's bottles and you'll see they're marked both Spring Lake and "Sonoma," with vintage years that date back before this place even opened. Then, if you ask the right questions, you'll find out that the wine is actually being made with grapes from California, not here. One explanation we were offered: Western New York grapes are no good for Merlot or Cabernet Sauvignon. The other: Spring Lake's grapes aren't ready yet; it opened in mid-2007, and has been waiting for them to mature. Three weeks from now, it will serve its first bottle of wine made with its own grapes - a Riesling - and at some point, it will also offer what it's calling "Pino Noir." In other words, Spring Lake had a great winery business idea on its hands, and didn't want to wait until it was actually producing grapes to start bringing people in to buy stuff.
To its credit, Spring Lake Winery appears to be executing on a sophisticated strategy, and some people seem to be thrilled by it; proclamations from various politicians on the walls enumerate and praise the place's business plan - build a beautiful-looking place and bring people there to buy wine - which they apparently saw and approved. And for sure, no other local vineyard has a train ride, a band, and a nearby lake to enjoy like this one, all of which add up to an experience rather than just a regular old tasting. But to us, it felt inauthentic, a business that primarily sells California wines, which after a tasting didn't impress either of us enough to make any purchases. We may well be in the minority here, but we're going to hold out for the locally-produced stuff; there's no need for a train ride to find Sonoma wines in Western New York. Moreover, as the Lebanese Festival demonstrated, it's not always the biggest or flashiest place that delivers the most compelling experience; sometimes, there's more fun and better food to be had in a simple white tent at a church.
