New York Street Food

Solber Pupusas wins the 2011 Vendy Cup (credit: NYSF)

The Vendy Awards are our High Holy Days, New Years Eve and Thanksgiving all rolled into one. We’ve been going since 2009, sponsoring since 2010, and it’s always our favorite day of the year.

Now people in 6 cities around the US will be able to enjoy this great event. Damn, these guys are growing faster than my waistline at last year’s Vendy Awards.

Click through for the cities and dates of all 6 Vendy Award events this year, including how to get tickets for the first one, which is already on sale.

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After a successful debut, the Vendy Awards are returning to Philadelphia later this month.  The best street food vendors in Philadelphia will be determined, all the while raising money for The Food Trust.

Don’t miss this great event! Click through for more details, including how to buy tickets.

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If you spend any time in Philadelphia, you’ll want to check out an article in last week’s NY Times about the food truck scene there.

In a word, its booming!  Even some hotels with restaurants are directing their guests to the food trucks for quick, inexpensive and delicious meals.

Similar to LA and SF, Philadelphia has Night Markets with numerous trucks gathered in one place for dinner.  It’s organized by the local nonprofit Food Trust, with financing from the William Penn Foundation.

Click here for the full article.

cheesesteak pizza

The cheesesteak melt we had from Gorilla Cheese NYC for Today’s Lunch got us looking around the web for stuff about cheesesteaks.  What we found was pretty interesting.

The people behind Endless Simmer put together an article about some of the ways you can enjoy cheesesteaks in non-cheesesteak forms.

Besides the not-much-of-a-stretch cheesesteak pizza, there are cheesesteak egg rolls, cheesesteak fries, cheesesteak empanadas and cheesesteak pretzels – but the piece de resistance is the Philly Taco aka South Street Sushi.

Click through to find out how to create this Frankenstein’s Monster of cheesesteak, pizza and cheese fries.  There’s even an instructional video.

cheesesteak egg rolls

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The 1st Annual Philadelphia Vendy Awards were held over the weekend at the Piazza at Schmidt’s.

Gigi and Big R

The 1st Philadelphia Vendy Cup Winner was Gigi and Big R’s Caribbean/American Soul Food. The 10-year-old business operates on the Drexel University campus and run by Elukene Rene (“Big R”), originally from Haiti, and Thomas Bacon (“Gigi”) from Philadelphia.  After winning, Bacon held up the Vendy Cup and joked about using it for a cold beer “after standing over a deep fryer, frying chicken, cooking cabbage and greens and serving customers.”

The Best Dessert Winner was Sweet Box Cupcakes, and the Peoples Taste Award went to Cucina Zapata for their chicken satay tacos and other Thai-Mexican fusion dishes.

Cucina Zapata

Congratulations to the winners and everyone who was nominated for the 1st Annual Philadelphia Vendy Awards.  We might have to take a trip down to Philly next summer for this.