This past weekend was the Ninth Avenue International Food Festival in Hell's Kitchen. Although Manhattan has lots of street fairs in the summer, this festival in May is special. A lot of the neighborhood restaurants participate which makes it more diverse than the usual street fair and gives it more character. I've been going since I was a kid (things were really different back then), and since moving to the neighborhood almost 8 years ago, A and I have tried to go every year.
We did most of our food crawling on Saturday. Our first stop this year was Poseidon Greek Bakery, which is probably one of our first stops every time we go.
Clockwise from top left: menina mash, menina mash partially eaten, the Poseidon stand, lots of pies
We got the Menina Mash, a vegetable pie filled with carrots, potatoes, spinach, chickory and escarole. The phyllo is flaky but not overwhelming, the vegetables are mashed together in a delicious green mixture, and the flavors are so comforting. Poseidon is a Hell's Kitchen institution and they have been serving delicious pies for years. We've never had a bad one there and recommend them all. They also have Greek sweets in addition to the savory pies.
Our second stop was a new one for us - Añejo Tequileria, Chef Angelo Sosa's Mexican place over on Tenth Avenue. We've had this place on our to-visit list for some time, so we stopped by to say hi to Chef and get some tacos.
Clockwise from top left: Añejo stand, chicken taco, menu sign, short rib taco
They were sadly sold out of the mushroom taco, so we went with the short rib taco (braised short ribs, cocoa, green cabbage, pico de gallo, chipotle crema, queso fresco) on a recommendation from Chef Sosa and the chicken taco (tender dark meat chicken, scented with banana leaf and achiote, cabbage, pico de gallo, chipotle crema, queso fresco). They were both delicious. The tortillas were a little bit dry but the taco fillings were really juicy and tasty. Our favorite was probably the short rib taco. There were such nuanced flavors to that taco and we would gladly get another one.
Our third stop was another annual stop - Millie's Pierogi! They come down from Massachusetts for this festival with their delicious pierogies and we always stop by to get some.
Clockwise from top left - potato and cheese pierogi, cabbage pierogi, pierogi stand, kielbasa pierogi, menu sign, pierogies plate
We usually get the same three pierogies: cabbage, potato and cheese, and kielbasa with potato and cheese. (They also have cheese and prune, but we've never gotten those.) It varies by year, but this year I think our favorite was the cabbage. We've never tried the kielbasa dog or the golumpki (stuffed cabbage), but maybe some year we will. The pierogies are so good though, that it's hard to choose anything else.
The food festival debuted a new "food truck park" this year on one block of the food festival (at least we don't remember it being there before), where there were about six or seven trucks lined up selling food items. The challenging thing about this was that some of the trucks didn't really have smaller sized food items to offer on their regular menus. If other visitors are like us, we usually don't get full meals at any individual stand but instead look for smaller items for a food crawl.
Clockwise from top left: menu board, Desi truck, inside the kati roll, aloo masala kati roll, free sample of puri-bhaji
We stopped at the Desi Truck, because out of all of the trucks there, it is hardest for us to visit them since they are down in SoHo. We got the aloo masala kati roll, which had curried potatoes, peppers and onions inside. It was a delicious snack. We also got to try the puri-bhaji, a puffed round flatbread with light potato curry, since they gave out free samples to a lot of people around the truck. That was really good and after the sample, we thought maybe we should have ordered that instead!
Our last snack on Saturday was at Leon Bakery, a Mexican spot on 9th Avenue that used to just have baked goods, groceries and tamales, but now has lots of options like tortas, cemitas and huaraches. We've been there a few times, but of course haven't shared it with you yet since we're so behind on posting.
Our last snack on Saturday was at Leon Bakery, a Mexican spot on 9th Avenue that used to just have baked goods, groceries and tamales, but now has lots of options like tortas, cemitas and huaraches. We've been there a few times, but of course haven't shared it with you yet since we're so behind on posting.
Left to right: wrapped up tamale, partially eaten tamale, horchata
For our last stop, we picked up a chicken tamale (it was supposed to be spicy but it was kind of mild) and a cup of horchata. It was a nice snack but I was expecting more from the tamale based on past experience with Leon. More spice, more flavor, more from the chicken inside. Maybe I got the wrong one and should have gone with my gut and gotten whatever was in the salsa verde. I think maybe I will stick with the cemita there, which I really like. The horchata was sweeter than usual and less cinnamon flavor, but still refreshing. It also had a bit of a sourness to the aftertaste. Not a sourness like it was going bad, but a sourness that was hard to describe. It didn't make it a bad drink, just a taste we weren't accustomed to.
We only made one stop on Sunday (other than picking up free cottage cheese from Friendship). We were looking for a snack so we stopped by one of the MozzArepas stands which show up several times along the festival blocks.
You can get MozzArepas at almost every street fair over the summer and they're nothing extraordinary, but we still like them. They consist of two round griddled corn cakes with mozzarella in between. The cheese is gooey and melty, and if you like corn and cheese like we do, it's always a nice treat. The MozzArepas have a really nice sweetness from the corn to pair with the salty, melted cheese. Not the best arepas, but they're fine. (The only arepas we've ever mentioned here are from the much-missed Farmers Rotisseria, but we've had a bunch of them, both Colombian and Venezuelan style, so we have a fair number of places to compare with.)
Lastly, in case you couldn't make it to the festival, here's a little taste of what it was like on Saturday, in addition to the fabulous snacks we talked about already. There were small street-side beer gardens, cultural performances, free samples of yogurt and cottage cheese, lots of grilled meat and sausage vendors, restaurant stands, carnival games, and people everywhere. It was a little quieter on Sunday due to the incessant rain.
We only made one stop on Sunday (other than picking up free cottage cheese from Friendship). We were looking for a snack so we stopped by one of the MozzArepas stands which show up several times along the festival blocks.
The MozzArepas stand, corn cakes on the griddle, our arepa
You can get MozzArepas at almost every street fair over the summer and they're nothing extraordinary, but we still like them. They consist of two round griddled corn cakes with mozzarella in between. The cheese is gooey and melty, and if you like corn and cheese like we do, it's always a nice treat. The MozzArepas have a really nice sweetness from the corn to pair with the salty, melted cheese. Not the best arepas, but they're fine. (The only arepas we've ever mentioned here are from the much-missed Farmers Rotisseria, but we've had a bunch of them, both Colombian and Venezuelan style, so we have a fair number of places to compare with.)
Lastly, in case you couldn't make it to the festival, here's a little taste of what it was like on Saturday, in addition to the fabulous snacks we talked about already. There were small street-side beer gardens, cultural performances, free samples of yogurt and cottage cheese, lots of grilled meat and sausage vendors, restaurant stands, carnival games, and people everywhere. It was a little quieter on Sunday due to the incessant rain.
Looking forward to next year's festival!
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