Salvatore Bklyn Ricotta

I went to Eataly to get some Salvatore Bklyn Ricotta which I've been dying to try for the longest time. Tiny thing set me back $10. But it lasted a really long time (well, a week, but a little goes a long way). I would sandwich it between slices of grilled zucchini, or put it between roasted eggplant and tomato slices. And then one day I put it on top of some garlic-rubbed toasted bread and topped it with prosciutto.

And all was well.

Hester Street Fair

One of my friends has a stand at the Hester Street Fair for her baked goods company which features cookies and cupcakes with Asian-inspired flavors (think green tea, jasmine, black sugar). On her first day selling, JP and I paid a visit to say hi and to fill ourselves with everything the fair has to offer. He didn't really know that we were eating there until we got there and I asked him to get in line for tacos at the Brooklyn Taco Company. Poor kid stood in the blazing hot sun for 10 minutes for those tacos! But they were good - particularly the chilorio brisket taco.  

The elote, which we actually got because the tamales would have taken too long, was also good - every square inch was covered in cheese. What wasn't good was the agua de sandia. I supposed I can't fault them if the watermelon wasn't ripe but don't use it if it doesn't taste good!

I also polished off a whole shaved ice with condensed milk mochi, kiwi and mango, and a scoop of green tea ice cream from The Shaved Ice Shop. 

I was a little upset that JP didn't like it, but I think it was because there was a LOT of condensed milk - even I found it a little too sweet and cloying. He did like the paletas from La Newyorkquina enough to get two of them. I have La Newyorkquina's book which I keep bringing to places I think she might be at so I can get it signed but no luck so far. Maybe next time.

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.