{"id":8683,"date":"2025-10-06T07:35:25","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T11:35:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/?p=8683"},"modified":"2025-10-06T07:35:25","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T11:35:25","slug":"panda-fest-makes-its-way-to-connecticut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/?p=8683","title":{"rendered":"Panda Fest Makes its Way to Connecticut!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clara Fruin ’28
\nEE\u00a0<\/em>Staff Writer<\/p>\n

For the first time in history, the Panda Fest finally came to Connecticut this September 27th and 28th. Panda Fest is one of the biggest open-air Asian food festivals in the United States offering tasty traditional foods, activities, live music, and cultural Asian performances that show the various vibrant cultures across Asia. And during the last weekend of September, Hartford\u2019s Mortensen Riverfront Plaza got to experience this amazing cultural melting pot.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It\u2019s safe to say that this was a highly <\/span>anticipated event for Hartford, only based <\/span>on the size of the turnout. For anyone <\/span>planning to attend future Panda Fests, it <\/span>is now one hundred percent <\/span>recommended to purchase tickets online. <\/span>The line to buy tickets was unimaginably <\/span>long, stretching all the way down to <\/span>Founders Bridge, and only grew longer <\/span>after a few hours.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There was an almost overwhelming variety of foods they had to offer! From spicy Korean barbeque, steaming bowls of Vietnamese Pho, to sweet cups of Taiwanese boba tea, and desserts galore.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

The most popular food items there by a mile were the Chinese gua bao buns. Of course, these were on my personal list to try, but the line extended for what seemed like a mile, and again, only grew larger as time went on! The delicious blend of unique and tasty smells made walking through an absolute dream, drawing in people from stall to stall. One stand that stood out to me was the tanghulu stand, which is a delicious treat on a skewer encrusted in a layer of sugar. This specific stand stood out to me because they had crates upon crates of authentic, fresh fruit, showing how these vendors don\u2019t mess around about the quality and freshness of their food.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Aside from the food, many traditional Asian performances and live music performed on the Hartford HealthCare Community Stage with an amazing view of the river. The live entertainments varied from pop music covers, to aweing classic Asian dances, to a DJ set remixing popular Asian hits. One traditional performance that was especially interesting, was the Mongolian chopstick dance because of the jaw dropping skill and eye-catching costumes of the dancers.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the end, this year\u2019s Panda Fest Connecticut <\/span>debut was an unforgettable hit. The crowd, food, and <\/span>entertainment all made for a thrilling adventure. If you <\/span>couldn\u2019t make it, definitely mark those calendars for next <\/span>year’s event, as you won\u2019t want to miss out on experiencing the <\/span>various, beautiful, and diverse cultures across Asia!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clara Fruin ’28 EE\u00a0Staff Writer For the first time in history, the Panda Fest finally came to Connecticut this September 27th and 28th. Panda Fest is one of the biggest open-air Asian…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":8692,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8683"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8694,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8683\/revisions\/8694"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}