February Festivals in Nassau

My favorite time of the year is upon us! It’s Nassau Festival season again. There are numerous festival periods on the island. Fall Festival season ended last November with Jollification and what a wonderful time that was. Have you read my post on Fall Festivals in Nassau? If you’re wondering what annual festivals occur during the months of October and November, I’d definitely recommend checking that post out. The new year started and February boosts of 3 festivals; namely Tru Tru Bahamian Festival, Seafood Lover’s Popup and Bahamas Junkanoo Arts & Music Festival.

“Festival February” as I like to call it, started with a bang at the Tru Tru Bahamian Festival, held February 2nd and 3rd. In the past years, I attended the festival on a Saturday. This year, however, I was unable to make the Saturday and it rained anyway. Attending “Tru Tru”on Sunday was a dream. There was not an excessive amount of people; meaning that there were hardly any lines at the booths. It was well attended, but not to the point of being overwhelming. I went straight to the best bartender in the Bahamas, MrMixBahamas and got the Sweetest Mango Tree (yes, that’s the name of the drink) and it was delicious! I had Chicken & Pork kabobs from All Da Meat. Their signature sauces, Rock my cherry and Calypso with Rum, paired so well with the meat. Next on the agenda was to see all the Bahamian made products on display. Hair products, candles, jewelry and more were showcased and I was mind blown. Everything was so beautiful; Bahamians are really talented. All that window shopping got me excited and I figured it was best to cool down with a mouthwatering good popsicle from PopStop. I got my usual, the Rasta Pop, which is strawberry, mango and kiwi. You can literally see and taste the fruit pieces. What’s better than that? If there’s a festival, I wanna eat and drink everything. These types of events are usually only once a year, so I have to have the absolute best time. I sampled Guava, Cherry and Pumpkin duff from the Duff Factory and let me tell you, yummy! I had a strawberry moji-something (definitely was not a mojito) from Island Cooler and conch fritters. Are you even Bahamian if you don’t have conch fritters? Children were playing soccer and riding wooden scooters, crowds of people gathered to listen to Lady E perform. I smiled to myself, while eating a tasty beef corn-dog from Corn Diggity Dogs, thinking “Wow, it’s truly amazing to be a Bahamian”.

The following week was the Seafood Pop-Up Festival. I was so excited for this. Various seafood restaurants and pop ups were scheduled to be there. Some of the vendors included, ConchnCone, C Food Shack, Lioness Sushi and more. The pescatarian in me was living! Or, so I hoped. I arrived at the festival around 3pm and there were lines everywhere. There were so many people. I did not know where to start. There was hardly any signage, so I did not know which vendor was where. I saw a familiar face and headed in the direction of their booth and to my surprise they were sold out! It was 3pm, there were 3 more hours of the festival and booths had already completed their products. I was flabbergasted. I went to The New Duff and they only had lobster duff left. I placed my order and went to Da Bugle to order something. I waited for probably 30/35 minutes and got an order of the only thing they had available at that time, seafood cakes. I could not distinguish what seafood was in the mix, nor was the flavor there.  I was expecting a sauce with the duff, but there was none. The flavor was also lacking. After an hour of the chaos, I left the festival highly disappointed.

Bahamas Junkanoo Arts & Music Festival was held on February 23rd & 24th. I made it a family affair and went on the Sunday. The festival despite, being held at Botanical Gardens was very quaint, a few food and drink vendors, about two artists displaying their paintings and a jewelry maker displaying her work. After a quick look around, I visited Bahama Capris and The New Duff’s booth and ordered a Henny Passion and Coconut Duff. That coconut duff was everything I didn’t know I needed. It was Ah-mazing! I also got a Sky Juice Capri from Island Pops. Surprisingly, I didn’t get any food at this festival. With it being so quaint, the vendors selected were only serving wings and conch fritters, that did not appeal to me at all. This festival was a good time, I left singing “Did you see Uncle Lou when he fall in the well” and dancing ring play.

Did you attend any of this these festivals? Which one was your favorite? Greek Festival is up next, March 9th and 10th. See you there!