NYC Tastes

It's supposed to be an absolutely gorgeous weekend filled with sunny skies so I thought I'd give you some great outdoor food ideas to enjoy every second of it! First up Madison Square Market which closes up shop on Friday. I stopped by for one last Asia Dog the other day and got The Mash- an all beef dog with spicy ketchup, jalapeno mustard and crushed up salt and pepper potato chips. Can you say delicious!!! OMG I loved this even more than the Wangding- I'm a firm believer that ketchup NEVER belongs on a hot dog but this changed my opinion forever. Over in Midtown you can check out the new BeerParc and enjoy one of the games on the Giant 35 ft. Screen. They have about 10 different beers on tap and food carts from Fatty Snacks, Edi & the Wolf and Thai food from Harold Dieterle. If you’re looking for some time on the water you’ve got two great options over on the East Side. Riverpark added some additional tables to their outdoor space complete with a separate sna...

This is probably my favorite weekend of the year. Masses of people flock to the beach, college students return home for summer and the city becomes a little bit more calm and a little bit more peaceful. No plans? Head on over to the Madison Square Market which is still going on. You can pick up something different than the regular old Hot Dog or Hamburger here. For instance check out Asia Dog! First you pick your dog- beef, organic beef, chicken or veggie, then you pick your topping. There's no regular old mustard here! Think Kimchi and Curry, Mango and Peanut, or what I went for the Wang Ding with BBQ Pork Belly and Onions. Truth be told I had this already once back at the Lucky Rice Festival and loved it! Here they topped it with a tad too much Hosin sauce but it was still delicious. The casing was snappy and the dog had a wonderful smokey flavor that rocked with the fatty belly. Plus you can enjoy a beer while sitting outside! What's better! So enjoy the w...

The Madison Square Market opened on Friday! It usually runs in October but there was some sort of snafu with the parks department and they moved it to May. That’s just fine with me- lots more time to enjoy the nice weather. Lots of new additions this year as you can see. Of the new ones I’m really excited about Asiadog and Calexico. I loved AsiaDog at Luckyrice last year- how can you not love loaded hot dogs! Momofuku on the other hand was a little disappointing. They only carry cookies and drinks. I would have loved me some cake truffles. Mr. T and I went by yesterday and picked up some frites from Bar Suzette. Unfortunately they weren’t exactly frites but more like shoestrings. They were terribly over salted and really not satisfying at all. We then tried out a chicken tamale from Breezy Hill Orchard. Unfortunately this wasn’t very good either. The chicken was over spiced and the corn was dry. I feel a little bad for them. Usually they have a ton of great appl...

Just a reminder to go out this weekend and enjoy some of the beautiful fall weather we’ve been having. It’s the last weekend of the Madison Square market and I’ve been so busy I still haven’t eaten everything offered. I got one step closer however with this Moroccan Meatball sandwich from the Almond stand. I know it says Moroccan but man this was a lot spicier than I had anticipated. From the outside it looks like any meatball marinara. However one bite in and its’ obvious this is loaded with a ton of spices. Mr. T and I were both coughing a little bit after just from the shock. However it was a very tasty sandwich and they gave you quite a lot of lamb inside. So get on over to check out some of the stands before it’s too late. Whether its cookies and cider from the Apple Orchard or beer and wine from Resto- there’s something for everyone. The market shuts down Saturday so you only have a couple days left! Madison Square Market

Last weekend the Madison Square Market opened up again with lots of unique shopping stalls and a bunch of food and drink vendors. There were a few guys from last year that returned- Cabrito, Wafels and Dinges and Suzette but honestly it mostly newcomers. Iilli, Almond and Resto made sense to me since they are right in the neighborhood. However I was shocked to see two Brooklyn guys- Roberta’s pizza and Pies N Thighs! I have always wanted to try out Roberta’s and don’t make it out to Bushwick that much so that was my first stop last week. They had some really thick Sicilian slices for $5 called the working man special but I wanted to try out one of their thin crust pies. Look at this pie! As you can see the crust was gorgeous with lots of charred bubbles and a super foldable middle. The tomato sauce was a little on the sweet side but the fresh mozzarella and basil really shined. See how it’s made? They brought their little oven outside. How cool is that! This was a very good p...

It was a beautiful day last Wednesday so Mr. T and I went for an al fresco dinner at the Madison Square Market again. This time we went straight to the Hill Country stand for some meat sandwiches.   Here is the Jalapeño Kreutz Sausage. For those of you that don’t know- Hill Country gets this sausage shipped directly from Kreutz BBQ which is among the top five best BBQ places in Texas. These sausages have a great snappy casing and pack in a serious amount of spice.   Here is our other sandwich the BBQ Beef. Is there anything better than a big old shreddy beef sandwich? Okay Shreddy may not be a word but I’m using it anyway- shreddy sandwich. Yum. To wash it all down we stopped over at Fatty Crab/Cabrito stand and got a Mexican Coke. The average American Coke is made with high-fructose corn syrup while the Mexican Coke is made with real cane sugar. The Mexican Coke really tastes different from a regular one with a lighter, cleaner flavor. For dessert we sto...