Get a delicious Taste of Asia without leaving Denver!

One of the ongoing highlights of each year’s Colorado Dragon Boat Festival has been the opportunity to eat your way across Asia and the Pacific Islands — bite by bite, and without leaving Denver.

Over the years, Taste of Asia has featured vendors serving up the cuisines of China, Korea, Vietnam, Philippines, India, Japan, Hawai’i, Laos, Thailand and oh yes, the good ol’ USA (and Mexico!).

In 2001, the first year of the Festival, there were only five brave food vendors on hand to serve the 15,000 curious spectators who’d never heard of dragon boat racing. Without a track record, it was difficult to convince restaurants to set up shop at the debut event. But that first, one-day CDBF was a big hit, and those five vendors all ran out of food by the afternoon!

Now, we have many more food vendors on hand, serving up a variety of cuisines from Asia (and some old-fashioned American fare too) every year. We also give out annual Culinary Awards to the best food vendors, chosen by a panel of expert celebrity judges. It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it.

As always this year, we’ll be featuring food vendors spanning the diversity of cultures you’ve come to expect from across Asia, the Pacific and the United States.