This trip, Noah Cappe celebrates Memorial Day weekend at suburban DC's ViVa! Vienna! festival, where the fastest way to his heart is through divine Soul Food. He springs for Loaded Perogies, learns a new spin on an old favorite with Philly Cheese Steak Fries and sees food and eats it with Baltimore-style Crab Dip. Then, he sets course for the bayou where he uncovers some tasty treasures at the pirate-themed Contraband Days festival in Lake Charles, La. There, he gets a lesson in down-home Cajun cooking with Chicken and Crawfish Gumbo, fancies up funnel cake with maple and candied bacon and goes nuts for Creole-style Praline candies with Miss Rita.
A number of quaint beach towns along the South Carolina coast are leading a revolution in Lowcountry cuisine, and Katie Lee finds the best beach bites in Sullivan's Island, Mt. Pleasant, Isle of Palms and Folly Beach. She starts at a hot spot that's elevating the classic Lowcountry boil by turning it into chowder. She also discovers a restaurant that lures skeptics in with typical beach fare and flips the script with perfect Korean cuisine. A breakfast pit stop converts Katie into a devotee after she samples crab cakes eggs Benedict and banana bread French toast. And it's not a visit to the Lowcountry without fresh shrimp, fried chicken, a cocktail and some gelato!
Miami’s sunny beaches and spicy cuisine has come-a-callin’ again. There is no getting enough of the taste of Key lime, and this time around Jamie and Bobby roll up on We Take the Cake for a Bundt cake with Key lime frosting that leaves the brothers begging for more. For seafood they stop into Laurenzo’s Italian Market to sample an authentic local delicacy – Stone Crab Bisque. The boys never get enough of chocolate so they pop into Romanico’s for Venezuelan "Art Chocolates" and truffles; every divine morsel is made from the world’s purest chocolate. Caribbean culture is big in Miami, and year after year Sonia’s Jamaican Patties are voted as the best by Miami locals and of course Jamie and Bobby now agree, hands down, Sonia’s patties are the best. To sample your own get a few shipped to your door.
Noah Cappe heads to Pacific Northwest for the Washington State Spring Fair to take in the seafood scene with the Seattle Crabby Dog loaded with cream cheese, sauteed onions and native Dungeness crab, plus Bowtie Prawn Pie -- an alfredo prawn pizza topped with farfalle pasta. Then, Noah stops and smells the flowers at the Meriden Daffodil Festival in Connecticut. Local Italian Americans carnival-fy family recipes to create perfect comfort foods like the Italian Chili Dog that tops a classic Italian sausage with pasta e fagioli and Lasagna Nachos that deep fry lasagna sheets covered in parmesan, mozzarella and marinara. For dessert, Noah grabs the Lemon Meringue Funnel Pie, a classic funnel cake loaded with tart lemon curd, buttery shortbread and crunchy meringues. Finally, it's off to the Four States Fair in Texarkana, Arkansas, for rocky road-ified fries and the Mud Bug Roll -- a sushi roll stuffed with local crawfish wrapped into spring roll and deep fried.