Smorgasburg

JP and I finally ventured over to Smorgasburg - the food-centric offshoot of the Brooklyn Flee, just one stop into Brooklyn on the L (if it was more, we might not have made it over...). It was the perfect day with the breeze from the water providing some welcome respite from the blazing sun. My plan? Sample as much as I can and hit up some spots that I'd read about and wanted to try. We succeeded for the most part - mostly because we came a little after noon while the market was still fairly slow.

We started with a pork cemita. What's a cemita? It's a sandwich originating in Puebla, Mexico. It's kinda like a regional version of a torta.

Unfortunately, we both found the bread to be too dry and neither the black bean spread nor the cheese made up for it. I wouldn't really recommend this to anyone. Plus, JP wasn't a fan of the papalo. We washed it down with some jalapeno limeaide from Tenpenny which I found to be a rip-off after I saw them pouring in Minute-Maid Limeaid and mixing it with other stuff (probably jalapeno-infused simple syrup). It wasn't that good either.

It started getting hot so we moved right along to the frozen desserts - Sweet Fusion which served small-batch ice cream enveloped in homemade mochi. We tried the watermelon one which was really good and refreshing, but a tad on the pricey side for what it was. I just remember thinking "if this was $1 less, I'd enjoy it more". But thats alright, we're supporting small producers and $1 for me isn't as much as $1 for them.

Still craving something to beat the heat, we hit up Rob & Anna's (hehe, say their name fast) for their soft-serve frozen bananas. I got it with some raw raspberry coulis which provided just the right amount of tang. This was one of the stands I wanted to try. I don't like bananas in smoothies but I do like other kinds of bananas. It was an interesting taste/texture combination and I'm glad I shared it with JP - I don't think I would've been able to finish this by myself. It's not that I didn't like it (I did), it was just...strange. 

We didn't try Nana's which sells frozen bananas dipped in chocolate that you customize with various toppings; in the hour or so after we first arrived at Smorgasburg, a ferry unloaded boat-load (ferry-load?) of passengers and huge lines formed. In other related news, I recently started freezing halves of baby bananas and coating them in chocolate. These are delicious.

While all those ferry people were waiting in lines, we sat around and enjoyed the views before making rounds for more edibles again. Round #2 started with JP getting a banh-mi style hot dog from AsiaDog, which I've written about before, topped with aioli, pate, cucumbers, pickled carrots and daikon, cilantro and jalapeno. 

We then moved on to the shave ice from People's Pops. I tried People's Pops once. I didn't like them. but their shave ice (yes, shave, not shaved) is SO RIDICULOUSLY GOOD AND REFRESHING. JP won this one - he got the sour cherry flavor, while I got the red plum version (they just pour homemade syrup on top of your ice). I could've eaten both of these. Note to self - get an ice shaver next time we're down in Mexico (the one the guy was using was Victoria, which is a Mexican brand).

And lastly, I couldn't pass up a doughnut from Dough. I'd heard a lot about them recently and having finally tried doughnuts from The Doughnut Plant, I couldn't pass these up to compare (took me a while even though the new location at the Chelsea Hotel is only a few blocks from my apartment...and I didn't even buy them, they were an apartment warming present/edible!). 

JP resisted. Why did I want a huge doughnut after already being a glutton and eating so much food? Plus it was pretty hot outside by then. But I just wanted it. We were debating between the blood orange and the hibiscus but finally went with the latter. I won this round. JP loved it. The doughnuts are light and fluffy and they're yeast doughnuts! That's my favorite kind - it reminds me of my childhood when I was in Communist Russia (we had surprisingly good baked goods over there!). I can't say I tasted much of the hibiscus, just a slight tang in the sweet glaze but whatever. This was a delicious way to end a delicious day. 

I'll definitely be back before summer is over - I missed out on some things I wanted to try, particularly Shorty Tang's cold sesame noodles, a delicious-looking chocolate crinkle cookie from Commerce Bakery and biscuits from King's Crumb. Next time. And another doughnut, or two.