\n\t\t\t\tSaipan Southern Warriors dance at the 17th Annual Taste of the Marianas International Food Festival & Beer Garden on May 2, 2015. (MVA)\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\nThe event is held every Saturday evening beginning at 6pm in May as part of the monthlong celebration of Tourism Month in the Northern Mariana Islands.<\/p>\n
\u201cA great turnout,\u201d said Marianas Visitors Authority managing director Perry Tenorio about opening night. \u201cThanks to the new site layout there was also more space, making the event more comfortable for the crowd.\u201d<\/p>\n
The MVA, the Hotel Association of the Northern Mariana Islands, and the National Park Service jointly hosted the annual event.<\/p>\n
Revelers joined two heats of the Hotdog Eating Competition, with Michael Alovera finishing first in the youth division, followed by Archival Vuasco in second place, and John Francis Santiago rounding out the winners in third place by default, having the least remaining hotdogs of all remaining competitors. In the adult division, it was a return of place finishers from prior years, with Andrew Songsong clearly nabbing first place, Simon Necesito demolishing his way to second place, and Ramon Emul finishing third. The winners walked away with $50, $30, and $20 worth of Taste tokens.<\/p>\n
This Saturday, May 9, the Taste of the Marianas will feature the Pie-Eating Contest at the rear stage. At 8pm will be the heat for contestants under age 18, with adults battling it out at 8:30pm. The entertainment lineup slated for this Saturday includes Out of the Ordinary Band, Rose Dance Studio, Jamaican Tangantangan, Simiyan Manainata, and JJ Concepcion and the TRU Marianas.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to remind patrons that this is the last Taste of the Marianas to redeem yellow $1 tokens,\u201d said Tenorio. \u201cYellow tokens should be spent at the festival or redeemed for cash at the Marianas Visitors Authority office.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taste of the Marianas offers international cuisine at affordable prices by 15 hotels and restaurant vendors, non-stop live entertainment on the main stage, nightly contests on the secondary stage, and arts and crafts sales. (MVA)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 17th Annual Taste of the Marianas International Food Festival & Beer Garden kicked off…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":200784,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[4335,43,4336,121],"class_list":["post-200780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biba-marianas","tag-hotdog-eating-competition","tag-marianas-visitors-authority","tag-michael-alovera","tag-northern-mariana-islands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}