Things you may appreciate

This weekend is the 26th International Festival of Raleigh. In my opinion, it embodies the best of what Raleigh diverse ethnic communities have to offer. The cultural booths are interesting and the dances on the main stage are great, but I show up for the food. There’s tons of good stuff to be had, but here’s a short list of the items that I try to never miss.

The Dutch booth has the best food, top to bottom. The fried fish and split pea soup are always outstanding, but the real treat is the olie bollen. Olie bollen are doughnuts that are normally made around Christmas in Holland, and they are fantastic. If you only have one thing at the International Festival, have the olie bollen.

The Filipino booth offers two great options — fried bananas and lumpia. Both are essentially something delicious fried in an egg roll wrapper. In the case of lumpia, it’s really flavorful pork. There’s a reason the line at this booth is often very long.

The French booth offers a variety of outstanding pastries and crepes made to order.

The Iranian booth has the most unusual food of any at the festival. That said, I love their kafta kebab, which is a great version of a dish you can find at just about any Middle Eastern kebab place.

The Lebanese booth offers my favorite sandwiches. They have a tabbouleh sandwich and a grape leaf sandwich, both of which are awesome. The tabbouleh sandwich in particular is deliciously fresh and green, and includes a load of creamy, sharp hummus. My mouth waters just thinking about it.

The Egyptian food booth is back this year, and with any luck they’ll be serving ful, one of my favorite bean dishes in the whole world.

Every year the lineup of food vendors changes a little, and I’m sure there will be a ton of other good things available, but that’s my short list of can’t miss dishes.

See you there!