Choice Eats 2013

Italian style braised beef sandwich & Red Wine Marinated Egg at VIP Preview

Last night’s 6th annual Choice Eats 2013 taken place in the 69th Armory was an intense food fest featuring over fifty (50) restaurants, bakeries, and other food vendors who were in Village Voice’s “Fork in the Road.”

Since there’s so many to choose and remember after my food comatose (and possibly tipsy from the beer and spirits) state, here’s a couple of dishes I really enjoyed:

Dirt Candy‘s cherry tomato tart with smoked feta was beautiful and tasty morsel. It almost made me forget there weren’t any meat in there as it was so flavorful.

Chef King Phojanakong of Kuma Inn broke down a whole crispy suckling pig in front of the crowd and served them on blue tortillas and slices of pickled red onions.

Kaia Wine Bar had lamb tongue toasties, which were large puff pastries topped with goat cheese cream, arugula, chopped lamb tongue and drizzled with rhubarb port dressing. It didn’t have that much tongue that offal haters would taste it. (Personally, I prefer they went heavier on the tongue, lighter on the goat cheese cream. Nevertheless, it was good.)

Homemade biscuit with homemade sausage with honey butter on the side by JoeDough was a great homage to the South. I liked their fresh homemade biscuit a smidge more than their sausage. The addition of their honey butter made it a lot tastier.

The lovely ladies behind Butter & Scotch, Alison and Keavy, baked up miniature boozy butterscotch cupcakes that created a ten-person pile up around their tables when dessert time was about to peak – and deservedly so. Moist little butterscotch cake soaked in whiskey caramel, vanilla frosting topped with toffee crunch.

Another important dessert mention, even though I don’t have a photo, is Robicelli’s deceptively plain-looking fudge brownie. Do not take this the wrong way, it is an awesome, delicious, intensely chocolate-y brownie that I would proudly gain five pounds from.

Salted chocolate chip cookies by Ovenly & Drunkey Monkey Pie by The Blue Stove at VIP Sweets

During the VIP Sweets hour in the basement, I really liked Ovenly‘s salted chocolate chip cookies, homey looking, maybe a couple of shades paler than what I grew up eating chocolate chip cookies but they packed a flavorful punch and I truly enjoyed the salt kick during the first few seconds of biting into it. The most richest dessert was from The Blue Stove – Drunken Monkey Pie – a banana cream pie on a vanilla-bourbon crust, caramelized bananas, caramel, and dark chocolate ganache. It’s insanely good but it’s quite a gut bomb after having eating everything from the main even upstairs.