NYC Wine & Food Festival Full, Part Deux

Last I left you at my first full day of the festival I was about to head out to Brooklyn for Travel Channel’s Man vs. Food host Adam Richman’s event called Brooklyn Bounty. I have watched that show once or twice. While he is very personable I can’t say that those eating contests get me excited, but I digress… Adam gathered some of his favorite places to eat in Brooklyn at the Green Building.

Some of his favorites were also some of mine that I have tried like McClures pickles where I mixed up the hot and not hot pickles (yikes!) and others that I have not tried (and/or are on my MEAT List) like Liddabits who were dipping macintosh apples in house made caramel, but not that homemade honeycomb I need to get up on.

I first went to the D. Coluccio & Sons table because I saw my favorite bright green olives that eat like a little avocados. They also had a wheel of parmesan and mortadella on a stick. Wasn’t really in the mood for meat at the festival this year for some reason so I missed the dipped roast beef sandwiches, hogshead cheese and a couple of others.

D. Coluccio & Sons spread

I did try the salted honey pie from 4 & 20 Blackbirds that was ridiculously good.

Four & Twenty Blackbirds salted honey pie

I also made my way to the food trucks outside that were mostly closing down except for Solber Papusas which offered me a pork one with all of the fixings and a smile.

Papusa

The best part aside from the great food and wicked DJ was scoring a whole L&B Spumoni Gardens Sicilian pie that I and a couple of other lucky people joyfully schlepped around the rest of the event. I topped my box with a small plate of he salted honey pie and a Liddabits caramel apple and headed back to Harlem doling out a bite to an inquisitive student en route back to Queens.

The next day, Sunday, had me back to the Grand Tasting earlier than the previous day so I could get it in, make my way to Andrew Zimmern’s Carts in the Parc and return to see my food journalist icon, Anthony Bourdain, at a cooking demo. Though I did see him coming in while Morimoto was murdering some blue crabs, returning for his demo was not to be.

Unexpectedly I got turned out by a number of restaurants sampling their wares at the Grand Tasting including the most divine gazpacho called sal morejo with serrano ham from Salinas that only needs to be tasted (had 4 of those). Boqueria sampled salted cod crostini (had 3 of those) where I bumped into Kefi owner and chef Michael Psilakis.

Chef Psilakis and me

sal morejo from Salinas

Chef Lawrence Knapp of The Hurricane Club presented a crispy corncake topped with avocado and a fresh acidy crab salad (3 of those). And a new modern Korean place called Danji, rising chef award winner Hooni Kim presented welk (snail) in a bright, spicy and delicious dish. My grand finale was baklava on a stick from Loi. Genius, crunchy and the perfect portion. I want to try to make that.

Crab Avocado Corncake

welk from Danji

Baklava on a stick from Loi

I got to see chef Michael Simon’s demo of pot roast but left to make it Food Parc before it ended. It was another awesome event you wish happened more than once a year because that is food passion personified.

I checked in quickly and made my way around starting with some Taiwanese fare from bian dang. It was crispy pork with rice and sauce. I could eat a whole plate of that if it was the only thing I was eating. Felt the same way about my food truck crush, Schnitzel & Things. Been trying to get there for sometime so when I saw it it didn’t matter how much space I had in my stomach. Wow! Perfectly breaded and fried chicken with the most divine buttery smashed potatoes and red cabbage. Get to know it.

Schnitzel plate

Other carts of note were Rouge Tomate for a seasonal soup (which was perfect when it started to rain), Kelvin for a modern slushie of ginger, blueberry with fresh basil, Taim turned out some fresh green flavorful falafel I would like to get to know on a personal level, Korilla BBQ for some damn good Korean tacos. I ended my experience waiting on a rainy line for Souvlaki GR truck’s signature lamb. Good and fresh but I need to revisit that for the chicken one though.

Taim falafel

Souvlaki GR

When the event was ending the Sweet Street Desserts truck began handing out flats of their famous sweets – brownies, blondies, tarts.  As I thanked them for the pecan chocolate squares and brownies it was then that I hatched a plan to invite some friends over for a NYC Wine & Food Festival booty fete!

L&B Spumoni Gardens Sicilian pie

sweets of the night...plus some other cupcakes too!

The following Tuesday brought a handful of friends to my house for pizza, brownies, salted honey pie, a caramel apple and a raffle (appropriately out of a All Clad pot) for a swag bag filled with festival fun.

the winner of the swag bag!

Thanks to my friends for coming and enjoying themselves.

Another great NYC Wine & Food Festival Mr. Schrager and team. See you next year!

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