Review
Awesome
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Experience
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Quality
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Value
Get here early. Parking blows, but it’s worth the walk.The event begins at 5, and the earlier the heat begins to dissipate, the earlier people will come. Beat the heat at Artifice with a cool drink and live paintings. Once the temperature is bearable, the event is astounding. First Friday engulfs Emergency arts, all of Casino Center, across Charleston onto First, spills down Main, and wraps back around to the alleys behind the Arts Center and the parking lots around. Live art is everywhere, both artists giving their souls to interactive exhibits that get passerby’s involved.
Food trucks line the outskirts of the venue almost trap the onlookers into a circular haven of colors and smells. Each one is different, offering up succulent options like Jamaican, lobster, Peruvian, arepas, tacos, or newer gastropub quality fusions that confuse and tease. Mr. Cooker offers up traditional Venezuelan cuisine like Reina Pepiada arepas. For those of you that don’t know what an arepa is, we have graciously googled it for you. It’s a corn pocket thingy that is crunchy on the outside and still creamy inside. In other words, it’s delicious. The Reina Pepiada is a cold mixture of chicken, cheese, and avocado and stuffed into a hot, moist arepa to resemble something close to heaven.
The food truck Hangry Nation also offers up a simple menu with Kimchi rice balls and pork belly buns. With an option to pick a combination of both and a drink or each individually, it offers a rather simple menu. The belly meat was sweet and cooked to perfection, though the sauce was a bit overpowering. The sponginess of the bread mimicked the texture of the meat and work together to create on giant squish that was sweet yet savory and unimaginably delicious. The stands that sold alcohol were manned well enough to handle the demand, and it was only moments from a craving for the bubbles of a beer until complete satisfaction.
There are performers abound, from drum circles with confused but happy patrons to dance offs with middle school aged children. In the food section, a live cooking demonstration gathered a small crowd, utterly captured in imagination, wishing they could taste the truffle infused item they prepared.Thankfully, there were not many musical performances or radios whose noise left you in the cross-talk patterns of annoying static. Today, each section faded in and out to another and never so loud to interrupt conversation.
First Friday Monthly Art Festival and Food Truck Gathering
1025 First Street, Las Vegas, NV 89101
https://ffflv.org/
First Friday is focused on local artists, all of whom have varied histories and backgrounds. Many of these are found in the intricacies of their art. There was a time recently that First Friday was in real danger of no longer being. This event is still a hit today, even though it event has shrunken from its peak. First Friday survived the Great Recession and repeated attempts to dismantle it. Almost anything can be found here, and this variety is a huge mark to its success. The art itself is varied from 2-D paintings to jewelry to woodworks. The event weaves through the ephemeral tents and through the stable studios in the surround buildings. Texture and space is different with each step, varying the experience each time and for each person.