This year marks the 70th Annual celebration of the Maine Lobster Festival, hosted in Rockland, Maine. Here’s my travel tips and advice for visiting. To read my full 1-week road trip journey, you can go here.
Things To See at Maine Lobster Festival
First, I will start with the things to see at the Maine Lobster Festival. There are many different events to watch such as the seafood cooking competition, big crate race, and all you can eat blueberry pancake party. Being someone who enjoys watching Food Network after work, I really enjoyed the seafood cooking competition. It felt like I was in an episode of Chopped. The contestors all brought their A game.
We had Chef 1 serving up Lobster tails with noodles in a spinach sauce topped with a fried lobster claw.
Then, another chef cooked a Lobster sformati, which tasted almost like a souffle. Very delicious! He even put them in the shape of a lobster for decor. Because remember, “looks/aesthetics” is one of the categories.
Another Chef hoping for the number 1 spot by creating lobster and leek rolls. He made a side of homemade biscuits shaped like claws.
It was very entertaining. The winner is actually not pictured above. He made a stuffed scallops dish. One of the best parts was getting to sample the dishes as they were being judged by the “official” judges. There were plenty of other competitions like the pageant held every year where one lucky girl will be crowned the Sea Goddess for the year. There was also a “fastest knitter competition.” I didn’t get a chance to check that out and frankly getting carpal tunnel just thinking about it.
Things To Eat at Maine Lobster Festival
Come to this festival HUNGRY that is for sure. There were dozens of stands set up offering chicken basket, fries, pulled pork bbq, clam chowder, Philly cheesesteak standwiches, empanadas, popcorn, funnel cake, cotton candy, and of course the lobster lunch meal. YUM. They also had several stands set up for freshly squeezed lemonade and tea, as well as your typical sodas and beers.
This festival is home to the largest lobster cooking pot which can cook up to 1600 lbs of lobster at a time. Yes, that’s a lot of lobster. Over 19,000 lbs of lobster is cooked and served during the week-long duration of Lobster festival. Lobsters are kind of a big deal here.
Things To Do at Maine Lobster Festival
You can’t have a festival without carnival rides, so be on the lookout here for some carnival rides. Not too many though – I was kind of underwhelmed with the small amount of rides there were. But, fun nonetheless.
If you care to get your face painted, you can have that done.
Overall, it was a nice time. Just note that this festival is incredibly small so don’t go in thinking this is going to be a huge deal. Coming from Virginia, I think we were the farthest ones who traveled here.
