New York Street Food

When you think of Jerusalem, street food is not the first (or even the 10th) thing that comes to mind.

But the Travel Channel recently shone a spotlight on one of the highlights of street food in Jerusalem – fried dough with cheese in the middle.   What isn’t better fried, especially cheese!

The video can’t be embedded, but you can click here to watch this tasty 2 minute video.

We recently ran across a video from Daniella on Design about food truck designs.  It included some history on street food too.  If I didn’t know better, I would think she took the New York Street Food Tour last summer, which included very similar facts about street food history.

One thing Daniella definitely did borrow was one of our pictures.  At 3:30 into the video, she uses our photo of Oleg serving customers at the Schnitzel & Things truck.  From the look of the video, there are a lot of scanned photos, so we probably weren’t the only ones she “borrowed” from.

Hey Daniella, it would have been nice if you asked, or at least gave credit, for the photo.  Next time, give credit where credit is due.  We are generally amenable to people using our photos, but please ask first.

I know we’ve been writing about grilled cheese a lot lately, but a) most people love it and b) there are some creative chefs doing interesting new things in the genre.

We first heard about (and tried) Food Freaks Grilled Cheese at the Taste of the Parks showcase last June.  The NYC Parks Dept was showing off some of the new vendors in the parks, and Food Freaks Grilled Cheese were one of our favorite tastes of the parks that day.

Food Freaks was founded by brothers Stephen and Dave Cusato and John Coppola, who are now serving awesome grilled cheese from a yellow kiosk right outside Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn (at DeKalb Ave).  They are open Tues-Sun from 11-5:30, but are open later when the weather is warmer.

Below is one of the tastes I had from Food Freaks Grilled Cheese that day, which was delicious.

braised short ribs, gruyere, blackberry jam & more

A young filmmaker in Fort Greene named Jonathan Mann approached Food Freaks Grilled Cheese not too long ago to make a video.  It came out really well.

Click through to check out the full menu of Food Freaks, and to watch the tasty video. (more…)

NYSF readers know how much we love everything “buffalo” and blue cheese related – but even we might not be ready for this!

I must have missed the episode of 30 Rock where they talk about a buffalo chicken milkshake, but NYSF reader Monica sent us a video she saw on Buzzfeed where the recipe is attempted by a 30 Rock writer and fan.

Sounds delicious, right? Watch as 30 Rock SuperFan Robert Bishop (of Lunch Blog KC) and 30 Rock writer Tracey Wigfield conquer one of the show’s most bizarre edible concoctions.

How do you get through a very cold winter’s night in Japan?  If you’re Eric Meal Time, it’s with a can of potato & cheese soup from a vending machine, plus yakitori and a fire-roasted sweet potato from street vendors.

On the New York Street Food Tour over the summer, I told people about how there used to be potato and sweet potato vendors on the streets of New York too.  Hot potatoes were used by people as “pocket warmers” during the day, then made into meals at night.

My mother-in-law, who is around 80, told us about her father coming home from work with potatoes in his pockets, which they would use for part of that night’s dinner.  Now that’s what I call multi-tasking.

1942 - Vendor selling hot sweet potatoes on East 7th St