New York Street Food

Every year the Vendy Award nominees have videos recorded so we can meet the vendors up close and personal.  This year’s videos were produced by Food Curated and are shown below for your enjoyment.  Just make sure you’ve eaten first!

1. King of Falafel & Shawarma

2. Bistro Truck

3. El Rey del Sabor

4. Patacon Pisao

5. Schnitzel & Things

The El Peluche truck

One of Gourmet Magazine’s final articles before going under was Eight Great Street Food Vendors In New York City.  They included some of the usual suspects, such as Hallo Berlin (mmm…wursts), Big Gay Ice Cream Truck and The King of Falafel & Shawarma.

Big Gay Ice Cream Truck and The King of Falafel & Shawarma were both Finalists in the 2009 Vendy Awards, which I attended and wrote about here, and Hallo Berlin won the very first Vendy Award back in 2005.

Sadly, Rolf Babiel, founder of Hallo Berlin passed away shortly after this article was published.  Midtown Lunch had a nice tribute to Rolf.  His brother Wolfgang took over the business, and Hallo Berlin Express, their third location, just opened.  Glad to see such great quality street food will continue.

Some of Gourmet’s more unexpected choices were the El Peluche truck in Washington Heights, BBQ Kebabs in Chinatown and the Red Hook Lobster Pound.

I subscribed to Gourmet for many years, and always enjoyed their travel articles much more than their recipes and cooking articles.  This is another example of why. [Gourmet]

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.