Today is National Waffle Day and Wafels & Dinges is the obvious place to celebrate. They will be on 52nd St between Lexington & 3rd Ave, and if you give them a drawing of their truck, you get a free waffle. They will be decorating the truck with drawings of the truck, like some kind of zen puzzle.
Between 1pm and 2 pm, they will be crowning Miss Wafel and Mister Wafel 2010 , who each get a year of free wafels. We hope there’s not a costume or uniform because there’s no way Miss Wafel or Mister Wafel will still fit into it after eating free wafels for a year. We certainly wouldn’t be able to.
If you recall, Wafels & Dinges won the 2009 Vendy Award for Best Dessert (below), so treat yourself to a wafel today and enjoy the festivities at the same time.
Wafels & Dinges was the New York Street Food Featured Vendor in December 2009. Click here to read the interview we did with Thomas DeGeest at the time.
Nice feature in today’s NY Times about the favorite new topping in our house – spekuloos from the Wafels & Dinges truck. We picked up a jar less than 2 weeks ago…and it’s almost gone already
We do have a little disagreement on the taste though. The label on the jar and the NY Times article say it’s made with gingerbread cookies, but it tastes more like graham crackers to us. If it’s made with Belgian gingerbread cookies, they seem to be different from Dutch gingerbread cookies.
We were in Amsterdam in December 2008 for Sinterklaas, and the gingerbread cookies we had were a much darker brown with a significantly more pronounced ginger taste. Personally, we like spekuloos better than the Dutch gingerbread we had in Amsterdam, but perhaps it was just a regional variation. Either way, we’ll be back at the truck soon for some more.
The Wafels & Dinges truck featured bbq pulled pork on a wafel some time ago as a special item, then took it off the menu for a while. This dish has now re-appeared as a regular menu item, and I had to try it. I love bbq and I love wafels. What could be better?
Today’s Lunch is the bbq pulled pork wafel with cole slaw and a coolickle (more about that later) for $8.50. As the menu says, “Where Brussels meets Biloxi”.
Tonight was the 1st Birthday Party of VendrTV, and what a year it’s been! In the past year, Dan has posted fifty episodes, visited twelve states and eaten tons of delicious food. His webisodes are always entertaining and informative, and I look forward to another year of watching them.
For the 1st Birthday Party of VendrTV, Dan hired 3 of the best street vendors in New York, all past Vendy Award winners; Schnitzel & Things, Calexico Cart and Wafels & Dinges. He also had free beer generously donated by Brooklyn Brewery, and the music was provided by the Eclectic Method. It was an offer we couldn’t refuse (even if we did have to go to Brooklyn).
After grabbing drinks and a table, our first stop was the Calexico Cart, the 2008 Vendy Award Winner. Tonight they had 3 choices; pollo asada tacos, pulled pork tacos and spicy vegetarian tacos.
Calexico grilled chicken
We started with a pollo asada taco and a pulled pork taco. The pulled pork taco was very tasty, but the pollo asada taco was amazing! Char-grilled marinated chicken, shredded lettuce and a green sauce. We asked for no tomato, which was a good choice, as it helped the various flavors of the chicken and green sauce come through better. We squirted some lime on top and thoroughly enjoyed every bite.
Pollo asada taco
After talking to Dan for a little while and some other people, and checking out some of Dan’s videos on the screen in back of the club, we went for some Schnitzel & Things next.
Tonight they had chicken schnitzel, bratwurst, and the schnitz burger, as well as potato salad and cabbage salad. I recently had the schnitz burger, so we decided on the chicken schnitzel and bratwurst. Plus, we had to save room for dessert later, and eating a schnitz burger would have seriously jeopardized this plan.
Schnitz & Things truck
The chicken schnitzel was awesome, as usual. A little lemon and this thinly-pounded chicken schnitzel was quickly resigned to the annals of history. We haven’t tried their bratwurst before, and this wurst was nicely done, although with only half a brat, we were left wanting more. Definitely have to get a bratwurst one day for lunch.
Chicken schnitz and brat
We took a little break from the food, talked to a few more partygoers, had another drink, and gave a short video congratulations to the cameraman for Dan. It took about 5 minutes for my sight to come back after having the video camera in my face, and at that point, it was time for dessert.
Outside we ran into Thomas DeGeest, founder of Wafels & Dinges. We talked about the Bobby Flay Throwdown, which Thomas won, as well as a few other things, and Thomas thanked us for the recent Featured Vendor Profile we recently ran about Thomas and W&D.
Thomas (W&D) and Perry (NYSF)
At that point, it was time for dessert, and we went for a classic Belgian wafel; the Liege wafel with spekuloos and confectioner’s sugar. Spekuloos was featured on the Throwdown episode, and it sounded great, a graham cracker flavored spread. Well, it was as good as it sounds, and was the perfect ending to a wonderful evening.
Spekuloos wafel
Thank you Dan. We look forward to watching you eat and discuss more great street food in the future.
The Wafels & Dinges truck came to 8th Ave today, between 56th & 57th St, right around the corner from my office. Even though they are no longer serving the Croque Monsieur and mainly have desserts, I was able to make a lunch out of one of their offerings. For a lunch wafel, they suggested the bacon wafel with maple syrup. It’s not exactly pizza or a gyro, but it sounded intriguing.
Their bacon wafel has pieces of bacon baked right inside, on top of which maple syrup and confectioner’s sugar are added. Not the healthiest lunch, but certainly one of the tastiest. The wafel was the Brussels type, light and airy, and there were plenty of pieces of bacon in the wafel. It was exactly like brunch when your maple syrup runs into your bacon, which is one of the all-time great tastes.
Today’s Lunch was great. Not very filling (it’s a dessert!), but that’s fine with the VendrTV birthday party tonight. I can use the extra room. I’ll write about tonight’s event over the weekend.
