This past Saturday was Bastille Day!  While I am not French I still believe in celebrating the French day of independence, because I love all things french.  The best way to celebrate was the Bastille Day Festival in the Bishop Arts District of Dallas.

So what exactly does a Bastille Day festival entail? French things of course!  Mussels, crepes, baguettes, french wine, mimes, street performers, berets, etc.  I was so excited to get there to enjoy freshly prepared mussels with a glass of french red wine.

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This was the third year for the Bishop Arts French Festival and the crowds were unexpected.  We arrived at the beginning of the festival, 7pm, and the crowds were already so bad that you could barely walk.  The lines to get beverage and food were even more crazy. Because of the lines and people we did not really get to enjoy the food and beverages, but hopefully next year they will have the crowds under control.

After arriving and pushing our way through the crowds to get our festival glass and food/beverage tokens, we waited in line for a drink.  A signature cordial of the French is the wonderful St. Germain Elderflower Liquor.  I own a bottle of this super sweet liquor, and I love to use it to make French 77′s at home.  However, St. Germain is meant to be added to drinks in small amounts.  The Hummingbird that they were serving was too sweet!  We could not drink them and ended up dumping them.  So sad!

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We were very hungry and wanting mussels, but we would have had to wait in three different lines for  nearly an hour just to get enough food to fill us up for dinner.  Therefore we ate at a Bishop Arts favorite, Oddfellows.  While the bar service at Oddfellows was awful (it took me nearly 30 minutes after paying for my drink to actually get my drink), the food was good! If you like southern comfort food, it is the place for you. Oddfellows was voted best Mac n’ Cheese in Dallas, so of course I had the Buffalo Chicken Mac n’ Cheese.  I felt like a child with a bowl of elbow maccaroni and fried chicken fingers.  Ha!

When we finally finished dinner we were ready to walk through the festival again, with a smaller crowd to battle.  While the crowds did diminish a little bit, the festival was kind of disastrous.  They ran out of French Wine and most of the food.  The only thing left was the Crepe stand, but  the line had about 50 people in it.  We had tokens to use, and nothing to use them on!  What a waste!

While I enjoyed spending time with the hubs, the festival unfortunately was a bust.  I hope they run things a little smoother next year because I still want my fun French festival.  Luckily we ended the evening on a good note by buying some pie from the soon to be opening Emporium Pie Company.