New York City Wine & Food Festival

I have to admit, I am loving this craze about food carts here in New York. The trend has definitely spread like wildfire with snazzy new carts popping up all over Manhattan. Ranging from the halal, great hangover type of options to your powder-pink frozen yogurt carts with gourmet toppings, the selection is literally endless. And what’s interesting about these food-carts-on-wheels is you don’t even know what you’re craving until you see one. Sort of like those impulse items placed by the checkout line, as soon as you hear the meat sizzling on the skillet it is all downhill from there.

A couple weeks ago I had an opportunity to attend the ultimate food cart event—The New York City Wine & Food Festival's Carts in the Parc—which was hosted by my favorite Travel Channel foodie, Andrew Zimmern. If there is a food cart heaven, this had to be it. It was unfortunate that I decided to axe meat completely this last April (due to a 14-month Argentinean lomo and Brazilian churrascarias binge) because the Saffron Layered Bombay Spicy Chicken Biryani & Kati Roll Selection by the Biryani cart was tempting. It was also disappointing to skip the Galbi Short Rib Taco with kimchee puree, onion-cilantro relish, sour cream, & roasted sesame seeds by The Krave being that I have heard so much about the Asian-Mexican fusion culinary movement.

However the carts didn't stop there. There was still a whole line of mouth-watering, sinfully amazing dessert carts to ravish through. Perhaps bypassing a few short rib tacos wasn't too bad. The giant cream puffs and rice crispy treats from Sweet Street Desserts were simply blissful. I think the camera crew may have even caught a glimpse of me stuffing one into my mouth as they filmed a brief interview with Andrew Zimmern. Ops!

What was the best thing about Carts in the Parc you wonder? The best thing was that 100% of the proceeds went to two great hunger relief nonprofit organizations: The Food Bank for New York City and Share Our Strength. Food, drinks, entertainment, and a great cause, what more could you ask for. Something that my favorite foodie said that day that really stuck with me was that "There is so much food in the world that no one should have to go to bed hungry at night." Unfortunately, the reality is that over a billion people in the world do.