NYC Eats: Sampling Food at Madison Square Park Eats!

Last year I didn't know about the gathering of food trucks and other food vendors at Madison Square Park Eats, but this year I was able to more than make up for it by going on two different weekends!  The food vendors are staying put at Madison Square Square Park till the end of the month (5/11).

Here are a few of the highlights:

The Bee Sting Pizza at Roberta's (based out of Brooklyn).  The pizza has mozzarella, tomato, spicy sopressata, and the secret ingredient...a drizzle of honey!  It goes very well with the spicy sopressata and the crust is amazingly light and airy.

A pic of Roberta's menu.  The Bee Sting may be $9 but it's definitely worth a try...

Next up is Asia Dog, which has wacky Asian inspired ingredients topped over a hot dog.  Here's a look at their menu.  I've gotten the Wang Ding and Viet before, and both were pretty good.  

This time around, I pretty much ordered the weirdest sounding item on the menu...the Ito, which 

is topped with kimchee apples and japanese curry.  It tastes as weird as it sounds and ended up not worth trying out as the kimchee apples were a very overpowering and I couldn't taste anything else.

Eataly, which is actually right across the street from the park, had their own stand selling some fried items such as a Fritto Misto, as well as Crispy Heritage Pork Ribs with Fried Chickpeas.  The pork ribs were very tasty and crispy as advertised, and the fried chickpeas were also cripsy, light, and airy...both were delish.

Next up is a pretzel from Sigmund's Pretzel Shop:  They had a truffle and cheddar pretzel.  While it tasted good, it sounded a little cooler than it was.  You could see the tiny specks of truffle but the taste didn't really come through.  The texture of the pretzel itself was good though...

Next up was my brother's favorite stand.  Stuffed Artisan Cannolis.  They had a deal for three mini cannolis for $5.  The flavors we had were girl scout cookie, banana creme pie, and chocolate and peanut butter.  All three were actually excellent and I might be stopping by their actual store in the Lower East Side in the near future!

One food item that I was pretty disappointed with was the Calexico food cart.  They're actually pretty well known but I'm not sure if it was an off day (it IS a street cart after all), but their carne asada taco was very dry when I got it.  Their chipotle pork had the very opposite issue, it was too wet and doused with too much watery sauce and became difficult to eat.

If you're hankering for a drink after downing all that food, try out a unique soda flavor from P&H Soda.  Pictured here is the hibiscus soda, and yes it tastes just as good as it sounds, like a flowery carbonated hibiscus tea (if you've ever had that).

There are other notable stands at the venue, including Momofuku Milk Bar (make sure to try their crack pie!), as well as a Cuban sandwich place and a crepe stand (Bar Suzette), among others.  You have until the end of the month to try it out....and then you'll have to wait till next year!