GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — The Grand Rapids Asian-Pacific Foundation is gearing up to hold its Noodle Fest on Saturday.
Chefs will battle it out to see who can whip up the tastiest noodle dishes. There will also be live entertainment at the festival.
Ace Marasigan, executive director and founder of the Grand Rapids Asian-Pacific Foundation, said this is the third year they've put on Noodle Fest.
"This is a free event where people can come in and buy from the vendors $6 or less for each one of the dishes," Marasigan said.
He added that there will be 17 vendors competing. You can check out some of the dishes you might be able to try at the event below.
Grand Rapids Noodle Fest dishes
When attendees buy from a vendor they will receive a token, which they can then put into a bucket for any vendor. The vendor with the most tokens at the end will be crowned the winner of the festival and receive $500 for their business.
Marasigan said the festival will also "blast them out" on social media so that everyone knows they're the new fest champion.
One new thing to the festival this year is that along with the popular vote, there will be a panel of five judges also helping to select the winners. Marasigan said they chose to add the panel since attendees don't have enough time to try all 17 vendors.
One of those judges will be 13 ON YOUR SIDE reporter Jeremiah Brown.
Some more new additions to the festival are are noodle dancing and a spicy noodle challenge.
Marasigan said the event is open to everyone.
"This is our community event," he said. "This is part of Grand Rapids. We are so diverse here in Grand Rapids and West Michigan, we just want to showcase that. We want to invite people to come out to be able to share the diversity that we have here."
If you'd like to try some noodles, the event will be taking place from 11 a.m. until 6 p.m. at Calder Plaza in Downtown Grand Rapids on Saturday.
For more information on the event, you can visit experiencegr.com.
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