Last night I went to the first Choice Eats event in the Puck Building. This was a food festival curated by Village Voice critic Robert Sietsema. It was, in a word, gastronomical.
First, a quick highlights rundown:
- I'm sure that the toasted walnuts with local honey and fennel pollen is a bar-snack masterpiece of subtlety when you actually have it at Jimmy's No. 43, but when the guy to your left is serving spicy chorizo and the guy to your right is serving an obscenely good rib (see below), it just doesn't cut it.
- I've been meaning to go to Hummus Place forever, given their rave reviews and rock-bottom prices. In fact, given the way people seem to swoon about it, I imagined that tasting this hummus was going to be a bit of a revelation about what hummus really could be. Unfortunately the hummus tasted like, well, hummus. And not especially flavorful hummus at that. Furthermore, perhaps its a hummus faux pas, but I think I prefer my hummus cold. This was hot.
- Everyone who I've seen cover the event said that Fette Sau was awesome, but they were gone before we got to them.
- Ok, it was the only taco I was aware of, but Mercadito had a pretty awesome one with shrimp and avocado.
- In comparison with my top pick (below), Fatty Crab's short rib "rendang" is much more composed dish, creative even. The short rib has, besides some kind of a sauce, some toasted coconut, lime and chili. It came with some coconut sticky rice. At first bite I was ready to say "well it's good, but too sweet..." but then came just the perfect amount of heat on the finish. Delicious.
- The rib. Oh man. I almost melted when I tasted a wonderful, sticky, sweet, crunchy, unctuous, perfect rib from Kampuchea. I mean I am sucker for a really good rib in general but this was just a whole other level of awesome. So awesome that for my last piece of food I physically finagled my way past the line to get what turned out to be the very last one. Curiously, it doesn't seem to be on their regular menu
John and I agreed that neither of us had ever been that full in our lives, probably owing to the fact that we were eating at a pretty ridiculous rate. We also had plenty of alcohol (I'm talking shots of Jäger here), but were eating so much that it didn't seem to effect us much at all. The beer was actually one of the highlights of the event. There was a large number of varieties available, few of which I had even heard of let alone tasted.
And there you have it. Photos of the event on john's flickr.
Agreed on all counts. And not just in a "we were drinking so much that obviously we were in an agreeable mood" way, but I really do think you hit the nail on the places we sampled.
ReplyDeleteKampuchea was awesome. Now I feel extra terrible about dropping their rib on the floor and going back for a 2nd one; not only because it deprived another soul of that tasty bone, but also myself. Oh and I do believe it's on their regular menu. It's listed as tamarind baby back ribs. Oh tamarind, is there anything you can't make delicious?
I think another honorable mention should belong to Smoke Joint. I'm glad we hit up their table early because they ran out pretty fast as well. I think it was bbq brisket over truffled grits. But since we got their early, we got some very nicely composed servings with the sliced beets and everything.
Fatty Crab was awesome, but I think they underestimated the logistical challenge involved in participating something like this. I'm glad I was able to taste some of your portion because it was really great, but they were trying to feed 1000 people and I'm pretty sure the rice cooker I have in my apartment was larger than the one they had. Also, I think they had 4 separate sauces that they applied to every dish. Big ass line.
My best discovery award probably goes to Margon. Really, their seafood salad was a breath of fresh air in the midst of all the other heavy foods (which I still mightily enjoyed mind you). It was bright, well balanced, and the quality of the plump shrimp and meaty octopus was great. Their cuban sandwich also rocked my socks. I'm making a note to visit soon.
Most random dish award? Probably the mashed potato and tuna fish casserole from El Anzuelo Fino. I mean, I like mashed potatoes and I like tuna fish so it wasn't really "bad" per se, just sort of shocking that something like this existed.
Disappointments:
Jimmy's No. 43 I don't want to rag on them since they seemed like really nice people who care about their food, but nuts? Really? Tasty, but forgettable in the bombastic hedonistic orgy of food that was going on everywhere else.
Not being able to sample the "pastrami" from Fette Sauce. The line was too damn long and by that point I was already loosening my belt. Oh and not getting one of those shrimp and avocado tacos. Those looked good.
The beer really topped off the event for me. Loads of variety, most of which I hadn't heard of before, and most importantly, there was an endless stream of it. And the jager shots. Oh boy. I was pretty close to being drunk by the end if it weren't for the copious amounts of grub. All in all, great fun and worth the 35 bucks.
Also, pics up!