5th Annual NYC Wine & Food Festival Grand Tasting 2012

I was invited by Socially Superlative to attend the 5th Annual NYC Food and Wine Festival Grand tasting on Sunday, and it was astonishing! I bought my fiancée with the plan of cutting the work right down this middle: she would eat the food while I enjoy the wine. I definitely got the better deal!

The festival once again benefited the Food Bank for New York City, forwarding on 100% of the net proceeds. To top it all off, there were cooking demonstrations every hour by such Top Chefs including: Bobby Flay, Robert Irvine, Masaharu Morimoto, and Michael Symon! I even heard a rumor that Marcus Samuelsson showed off a few dances for the crowd.

I focused instead on the food (and, just as importantly, wine) portion of the show, here are my favorite picks:

Alobar – Duck confit sloppy joe. Mini sandwich made from delicious duck confit topped with a fried quail egg. So rich it nearly brought tears to my eyes, with fresh-made ricotta and red wine sauteed onions. Easily my favorite sample of the day.

508 GastroBrewery – Beef Brisket Bulgogi Sliders with Kimchi Aioli. Delicious, and rather large, beef brisket sandwiches made from Bulgogi marinated beef on a brioche slider bun. Absolutely delicious, the only thing missing was the perfect pint of brown ale. Of course, the non-stop sampling train of red wine made for a fine replacement!

Karlsson’s Gold – Ultimately a very smooth potato vodka from Sweden. Hard to really pull a flavor profile, mostly because they were pouring it from an ice luge! I’d given up liquor at this point, in a futile attempt to maintain some semblance of sobriety, but I’m simply not mature enough to say no to vodka poured out a giant cube of ice.

4-Hour Chef – Muscle Cricket Protein Bars. My fiancée slipped me one and told me it was made out of peanut butter. It’s not. It’s made from crickets. Not cool.

Noble Vines 667 – I’m a sucker for Pinot Noir, but this is one of my new favorites. Red cheery and light vanilla notes, with a perfectly balanced acidity.

These were just my personal favorite, but there were many many more booths including:

• Bluepoint Cleanse – Would have been useful the following day…
• Highpoint Bistro and Bar – Chicken and Lentil Cakes
• Sons of Essex – Asian Peanut Sesame Noodles
• Bagatelle – Tuna tartare with avocado salad, lime soy vinaigrette, and taro chips
• Brasserie Cognad de Monsieur Ballon – Cognag Signature Lobster Bisque
• Ardesia – Goats Milk Ricotta Corstini
• Nios Restaurant – Scallop Escabeche, Pickled Pumpkin, Jalapeno, Almonds, Cocnut

Now to start counting off the days until next year’s event…

-Matt S.

PausePlayPlayPrev|NextShow thumbnailsHide thumbnails

• 1
• 2

left

right