06/22/2018
Many downtown Ithaca and Tompkins County restaurants set to showcase multiple $5 samplers & sips
Hey foodies! Start working up your appetite now. The extremely popular Bite of Ithaca, a week-long celebration of all things culinary in Tompkins County, returns for its fourth year!
From June 25th – June 30, guests can take their taste buds on a culinary journey and enjoy food samples (and $5 sips) all over the county as more than 20 participating restaurants will offer tasty $5 bites in addition to their regular menu. Grab a dining passport at any of the participating restaurants, grab your friends and start restaurant hopping!
Dining passports will also be available for download at downtownithaca.com starting June 23.
You’ll be able to use your passports to learn about the different Bite cuisine and to collect stamps from the restaurants you visit. When you return your completed passport at any one of the participating restaurants or a visitor center, you will be entered to win $150 gift certificate to the participating Bite restaurant of your choice. Every stamp collected is an entry in the raffle. To enter, return your completed passport to the Downtown Ithaca Visitor Center located inside Center Ithaca on the Commons or to the East Shore Ithaca Visitor Center at 904 East Shore Drive, near Stewart Park. You can also mail it into the Downtown Ithaca Alliance or email a scanned version too. Entry details at Biteofithaca.com. The Downtown Ithaca Alliance, the Bite of Ithaca’s organizers, will draw one lucky winner around the middle of the month.
Simeons on The Commons, downtown’s premier American bistro and a first-year BITE participant, promises to wow its dining guests with a bounty of special samplings made by its highly skilled chefs.
“We’re very fortunate to have such an incredible and diverse dining scene in Tompkins County. We are thrilled to welcome Simeons on board for this extraordinary culinary exhibition, and we expect they and all of the additional participating restaurants will be working hard to create delicious bites,” says Allison Graffin, marketing director for the Downtown Ithaca Alliance.
Downtown’s Monks on The Commons is preparing a feast of BITE options including lamb lollipops, savory corn chowder, and fried green tomato and pork belly. A signature drink, the Bengal Sour featuring Bourbon, Entomos Apiaries Raw Honey, Darjeeling Tea, Lemon, and Black Cardamom, will be on Monks’ BITE menu, too!
Luna Inspired Street Food, a downtown and Collegetown dining favorite known for crafting flavorful dishes found on food trucks across the country, will be flexing its Mediterranean food muscles by serving Moroccan Street Skewers featuring a zesty lemon ginger marinated, flame-grilled chicken skewer finished with a spiced honey glaze and served over a bed of coconut cilantro rice.
Foodies will also want to make the short walk or drive to The Loft, where its Bite menu will feature bite-size samples of its cure board with cheese and pickles, a vegetarian sandwich bites and bite-size flatbreads, all of which are made with locally sourced ingredients. The Loft is located on the second floor of the beautifully restored Carriage House at 305 Stewart Ave., Ithaca.
For those seeking to venture outside of the city of Ithaca limits for some samplers, Atlas Bowl in Trumansburg will once again be part of BITE, and the Inn at Taughannock, also a new restaurant to Bite, will offer four mouthwatering options including a homemade s’mores for a dessert bite.
For a full listing of Bite participants and their bites offerings along with more details about the passport and how to enter to win, visit www.biteofithaca.com.
For Downtown Ithaca Bite visitors, parking will be available at Seneca, Green and Cayuga Street garages. Community valet parking is available every day of the week at Marriott on The Commons and Hilton Garden Inn. For additional parking details, visit www.parkithaca.com.
Bite of Ithaca is organized by the Downtown Ithaca Alliance & made possible by a grant from the Tompkins County Tourism Program.
