PORT ANGELES — The Olympic Culinary Loop’s final chapter in finding and honoring the seafood chowder that best exemplifies the Olympic Peninsula will be at 3:30 p.m. today on the final day of the Dungeness Crab & Seafood Festival.
The main event of the three-day festival is the crab dinner feast in the Crab Central tent in the parking lot of the Red Lion Hotel at Lincoln Street and Railroad Avenue. The crab is served with fresh corn and cole slaw.
Tickets for the full crab meal are $30. Military personnel with current active ID pay $26.
Inside Crab Central are other restaurant booths, adult beverages and live music.
On City Pier— where food and goods booths will be set up — visitors can buy cooked and cleaned Dungeness crab to go until 5 p.m. today.
Regional taste-offs for the best Northwest seafood chowder began in March in Penn Cove during the MusselFest and continued at Ocean Shores’ Razor Clam Festival, Brinnon’s Shrimpfest, Port Townsend and Port Angeles’ farmers market and Allyn’s Salmon Bake and Geoduck Festival.
The judging of the champion chowder will be after the 7th annual Chowder Cook-Off fundraiser for the Captain Joseph House Foundation, which will be from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Both will be at The Gateway transit center at the intersection of Lincoln and Front streets.
The chowder championship is one of many foodie events planned for CrabFest.
Northwest chefs will continue cooking demonstrations on the Gateway Center Chef Demonstration Stage from 11:30 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. today.
Here is the schedule.
• 11:30 a.m. — Pan-Seared Wild Alaska Salmon on Duke’s Ty Cobb Salad by Wild” Bill Ranniger, corporate executive chef for Duke’s Chowder Houses, of Seattle.
• 12:45 p.m. — Dungeness Crab-Stuffed Prawns with Roasted Tomato Pesto & Authentic Jamestown S’Kllalam Tribal Fry Bread by Larry Smithson, executive chef-director of food and beverage at Seven House of Seven Brothers, Sequim.
• 1:45 p.m. — The Best-Ever Crab Cakes Featuring Dungeness Crab by Troy Murrell, executive chef at Spirits Bar & Grill at the Old Alcohol Plant Inn, Port Hadlock.
• 2:45 p.m. — Razor Clam Fritter, Po’ Boys with Cilantro & Lime by Ron Wisner, executive chef at Ocean Crest Resort, Moclips.
Other activities scheduled today are:
• 9:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. — Crab Revival musical, non-denominational service at The Gateway pavilion at Lincoln and Front streets.
• 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. — Grab-A-Crab Derby sponsored by High Tide Seafoods, Wilder Auto and Puget Sound Anglers on the pier.
• 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. — Arts and crafts and food booths open on City Pier; Feiro Marine Life Center open on City Pier.
For advance crab dinner tickets and a complete schedule of events, go to landing.crabfestival.org.
The Peninsula Daily News’ Dungeness Crab & Seafood Festival special section is online at tinyurl.com/PDN-CrabFest2019.