New York Street Food

In our Mobile Munchies post for March 18th, we told you about how you could win one of four Think Pad Edge’s by visiting Cupcake Stop that day.

Well, Lev obviously got one for himself, and all he had to do was talk about how useful the ThinkPad Edge is for his daily business, Cupcake Stop.  Check out the video for some delicious cupcake porn.

If anyone from Lenovo is reading this, I’m sure the ThinkPad Edge would be quite useful for my business, too (and I’d be happy to give a testimonial to that effect). Just email newyorkstreetfood@gmail.com.

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, Cupcake Stop is making Irish-themed cupcakes with plenty of booze.  We don’t know if you actually need to be 21 to eat them, but just to be on the safe side, don’t drive or operate any heavy machinery after eating them.

Cupcake Stop’s baker, Heather Warren, is introducing a bunch of new flavors for the holiday, including Irish Soda Bread, Stout, Drunken Raisin, Bailey’s Cheesecake and Irish Coffee.  If you mention Gothamist while ordering a dozen before St. Patty’s day, you’ll get a baker’s dozen instead, with a free alcoholic cupcake of your choice. Cupcakes run $15 a dozen for the minis and $40 a dozen for the full sized versions. [Gothamist]

Lev Ekster, founder of Cupcake Stop, with a tray of Oreo crumb cupcakes

The  Cupcake Stop truck is the subject of our latest New York Street Food Featured Vendor Profile.  Cupcake Stop was founded by Lev Ekster, a Brooklyn native and recent New York Law School graduate who put his law career on hold to start Cupcake Stop after spending many long nights in the law library fueled by cupcakes.  We recently spoke with Lev and filed this NYSF Featured Vendor Profile:

NYSF: When did you start Cupcake Stop and what did you do before that? Did you have any food or business background?

Lev: Our first day was June 3, 2009.  Before that I was a business major in college and graduated from New York Law School in May 2009.  There weren’t too many good law jobs around due to the economy, so I looked into starting my own business.  I love cupcakes, but there were already a lot of cupcake stores around.  I thought the quality on many of them could stand improvement, but New York was already saturated with cupcake stores.  I saw The Dessert Truck and then other high quality food trucks, and it just made sense to think about opening a mobile food truck that served cupcakes.  We would stand out from the other cupcake stores by bringing cupcakes to the people.

NYSF: I noticed that you don’t have ovens in the truck.  When and where are the cupcakes made?

Lev: We share a commercial kitchen in Brooklyn with a catering company.  They use it during the day and we use it at night.  Our cupcakes are made from scratch and baked fresh every day, and the ones we don’t sell each day are donated to City Harvest.

NYSF: Where do you come up with such interesting flavors, such as psychedelic tie-dye, starry nights and brownie cheesecake?

Lev: Many of our flavors are based on our baker’s own recipes. However, on our menu page, we have a place where anyone can submit a new cupcake flavor idea.  We get between 50 and 100 new flavor submissions per day, and once a month, we select a new flavor from all the submissions. The person who submitted the winning flavor receives 100 free cupcakes.

NYSF: What are your future plans for Cupcake Stop?

Lev: Obvious choices would be to open a retail store, go into mail order, or have a second truck, but I want to be careful not to expand too quickly.  Many businesses have gone under by expanding too fast or by expanding and the quality of the product suffers.  We want to maintain the high quality of our cupcakes.  It’s also pretty tough at this time to get a food truck permit in New York.  Our next step is to open a stand on March 1st in the new Limelight Marketplace on 6th Ave and 20th St.  The first floor is going to have a sweets department, which is where we will have a new Cupcake Stop stand.

NYSF: Do you have any advice for aspiring street food entrepeneurs?

Lev: Be prepared to work hard.  If you’re thinking of opening a food-related business in New York, you have to able to wow people because the quality and variety of the food in New York is enormous.  You have to find a way to stand out.  In addition to a great product, you also need to have a good staff who like working with people and are polite to your customers.

NYSF: Thank you for your time and best of luck with Cupcake Stop.  It was a pleasure speaking with you.

Lev: Thank you.

Below is a sampling of the cupcakes NYSF purchased anonymously on Saturday in Soho.  They lived up to the hype.  My friends and family thoroughly enjoyed each and every one, although Red Velvet, Funfetti and PB&J were the favorites.

clockwise from top left: Red Velvet, Funfetti, Red Velvet, Vanilla Chocolate Chip, Vanilla/Chocolate, Peanut Butter & Jelly

Unfortunately, not every Vendy Award Finalist can win their category, but every finalist had great food.  Here’s a look at the great street food that did not win in their category, but we were all winners for having eaten their food.

Vendy Cup Finalists (excluding the winner)

The Rickshaw Dumpling Truck had great dumplings (duh!), but their plate had some nice cold noodles, too.

The King of Falafel and Shawarma, Fares Zeidaies, had a fervent following, and their matching outfits were quite colorful.  Their egg-shaped falafel was awesome, too.

I tried the jerk chicken at The Jamaican Dutchy cart, and it was very well done.  Hot, but not brutally so.  O’Neill Reid, the proprietor, takes his cooking very seriously (as they all do), and it shows in the end.  I didn’t get a picture of the jerk chicken, but below is the yummy squash bread.

Dessert Category Finalists (excluding the winner)

The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck had a perpetually long line all day.  Their menu was very creative.  The choice of toppings was staggering and unusual for ice cream: olive oil and sea salt, ground wasabi peas, toasted curried coconut, trix cereal, mixed berries and saba, banana-Scharffen Berger cocoa puree, cayenne pepper and dulce de leche with crushed Nilla wafers.  Crazy stuff!

Cupcake Stop had exceptional variety, as well.  Some of their flavors were Oreo crunch, candy apply, tiramisu and a few others of the same quality.

Rookie of the Year Finalists (excluding the winner)

This was the first time the Vendy Awards had a Rookie of the Year category, and it had some of my personal favorite types of food, schnitzel (who won-see my post on the winners) and BBQ.

Picknick Smoked was one of my favorites.  The pulled pork was nice and smoky, and not too drenched in sauce.  They also put cole slaw on the sandwich, which I like.  Their Arnold Palmers (half iced tea and half lemonade) were some of the best thirst quenchers of the day.

nyccravings was a nice nosh, with pork and vegetable dumplings, taiwanese pork chops and crispy fried chicken.  I really liked their sweet beijing sauce, too.

I can’t wait until next year.