Food lovers will find range of options at festival

If you like sampling different foods, the North Central Chamber of Commerce’s 27th annual Apple Festival can please your palate in a number of ways.

Seafood lovers, for example, can feast upon everything from lobster bisque and New England clam chowder to clam cakes and fried shrimp.

Those traditionalists who love popcorn, doughboys and other festival food will have plenty to choose from.

Folks who simply won’t settle for anything less than pizza, meatballs, eggplant and spinach pies will also love this year’s offerings.

And of course, no apple-related event would be complete without those classic candy apples.

Then there’s the Johnston Community Center Association, the non-profit that recently revived the once highly-popular Summer Concert in the Park, which will offer charcoal grilled hamburgers, hot dogs and other items all cooked by volunteers.

This year’s list of food vendors will have perhaps more diversity than any Apple Fest in recent memory.

Two vendors – Tolento’s Ice House Grille of North Providence and Plouffe Food Truck – will offer totally different dishes as their respective booths.

Tom Tolento, whose Ice House Grille is about to celebrate its one-year anniversary at its Mineral Spring Avenue location, will bring a touch of New Orleans food to this year’s event.

“We’ll be serving our famous gourmet egg rolls,” he explained. “They’re golden fried and crispy and filled with cheese steak, chicken and other goodies.”

But Tolento’s Ice House Grille, which is known for having Rhode Island’s only authentic Cajun food, will also serve the New Orleans favorite jambalaya Saturday and Sunday inside Johnston War Memorial Park.

And the Cajun side of Tolento’s Ice House Grille menu comes from his son James – the eatery’s clever chef – who is well schooled in a variety of recipes as he gained experience from a seven-year stint on New Orleans’ restaurant road.

Meanwhile, the Plouffe Food Truck of Providence is another unique food vendor that will offer such special servings as pulled pork, cole slaw, beans, smoked meats, tacos, burritos, veggie burgers and apple slices caramel.

Of course, no outdoor festival would be complete without Poppy’s Gourmet Kettle Corn of Warwick, which will also serve fresh-squeezed lemonade.

Buddy’s Diner of Johnston will have a wide variety of foods, including hamburgers, hot dogs, mozzarella sticks, steak, sweet potato fries, French fries, buffalo wings, chicken fingers, pizza, spinach pies, meatballs, eggplant and pastrami.

Warwick-based CC’s Spiral Potatoes has a menu that will include corn dogs, friend pickles, white potato chips with cheese and bacon, fried peanut butter and jelly and even lobster bisque and cider.

Mickey G’s Clamshack, based in Cumberland, lists red and white chowder, clam cakes, fried shrimp and doughboys on its menu.

Okee’s Old Fashion Family Fun, which will have is famed train, rock wall, whirly bird, walk threw and laser tag, has been an Apple Festival mainstay. This time around, it will offer candy apples, popcorn and cotton candy.

And if you’d just like to tour the 100-vendor plus exhibits enjoying an ice cream cone, be sure to visit Johnston-based S. B. Winsor Dairy stand for some ice cream served in either cups or homemade cones.