New York Street Food

The 2011 Vendy Award Rookie of the Year Finalists were just announced by Grub Street, so let’s get to it.

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Homemade lamb kefta sandwich from Two Pitas In A Pod

The Vendy Awards has added another new category for 2011 besides the Hero’s Award – The Best of NJ.

We’ve had a New Jersey section on New York Street Food for quite some time, because Northern NJ is as much a part of NYC as Queens or Staten Island – and they have great street food vendors!

We must say, the Vendy Awards did their homework.  All the NJ nominees are excellent.  In alphabetical order, the Best of NJ nominees are: (more…)

La Newyorkina has been getting a lot of acclaim in the past few months – at the Highline, the Hester St Fair, the New Amsterdam Market, in the new Big Gay Ice Cream Shop – and now as a 2011 Vendy Award Finalist in the Best Dessert category.

We caught up with La Newyorkina last night outside the Ace Hotel for Fashions Night Out, where Eric was manning the cart.  While they only had mini-paletas for FNO, we got to try two different flavors – mango chile and white sangria.

mango chile

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This is how it all starts out

Yesterday Wooly’s Ice was nominated for a 2011 Vendy Award in the Best Dessert category, and I hadn’t had a chance to try them yet.  That was resolved last night at Fashion Night Out, when I stopped by TopShop in Soho, where they were giving away free samples in the store.

Danny and Kenneth also showed me how they put together their Vendy Award-nominated dessert of Hawaiian and Taiwanese-inspired shaved ice.

First you start with a big block of flavored ice. Tonight they had 2 flavors – strawberry and original, which is flavored with condensed milk.  The block of ice then goes through an ice shaver little by little, which turns it into extremely fine shavings of ice.

After the ice is shaved into a cup, Danny put a few pieces of crumbled brownie and strawberries on the ice, then squirted on some leche sauce.  Their leche sauce is condensed milk, evaporated milk and just a touch of sea salt.

Click through for a beautiful shot of the finished product, which was delicious.

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La Bella Torte

The finalists have just been announced for the 2011 Vendy Awards in the Best Dessert category by the Daily News.  They are as follows:

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