Recap of 1st Taste Williamsburg Greenpoint

Last Sunday, we attended the first annual Taste Williamsburg Greenpoint - a food event to raise money for the building of the Northside Town Hall Community and Cultural Center.  Not only was it for a good cause, but the event was a great way for us to explore these two areas of Brooklyn all in one spot.

So along with my husband (aka my hand model), we tried as many foods as we could, talked to a variety of vendors, and learned about places we'd like to visit in Brooklyn.

 At first, we wandered along the booths, debating whether we should start with sweet items like the baked goods from Bakeri...

...or the savory items like the pulled pork sliders (Teddy's Bar and Grill), melon gazpacho and lamb meatballs (DOC Wine Bar)...

...inventive pizza from Vinnie's Pizzeria (doesn't that black bean/avocado pizza look good?) and chicken liver pate on homemade jalapeno focaccia from Miranda Restaurant. Yup, we started with savory snacks...

 Our favorite bite of the day:  Braised Pork Cheek on Cream of Wheat and Prune Jus from Traif.  The meat was so juicy and tender.  We also liked meeting the owners Jason Marcus and Heather Heuser from California.  Their new restaurant, Traif, features a lot of pig items including Bacon Doughnuts.

Amongst all of the seafood options, we chose a Rock Shrimp slider from French Bistro Juliette and fresh PEI oysters with a hint of salinity from Sel de Mer.

We had our first taste of Fatty 'Cue with their offering of Smoked Goat with Green Chili Sauce.  The sauce was wonderfully spicy and the meat was mild and juicy. The goat disappeared fast!

We also liked meeting the crew from Lokal, a new Mediterranean restaurant on the border of Williamsburg and Greenpoint.  The "Bulgolgi" sliders were made with NY sirloin steak marinated in sesame oil, soy sauce, and garlic sauteed with onions.  I especially liked the colors and flavors from their Warm Spinach Salad.  Baby spinach was sauteed in pine nuts, raisins, red peppers, and caramelized red onions and then topped with feta cheese.

Having enjoyed Marlow and Sons and wanting to try out their sister restaurant Diner, we had their Chicken Liver Mousse on a Toasted Baguette.  It was small and simple, but packed with flavor.

We've been meaning to check out the Greenpoint Food Market, and after meeting a few of the vendors here, will definitely make a point of venturing out there one weekend.  A few of our favorites included the Chipotle Brownies and Irish Car Bomb Twinkies from Bullfrog Eats, Red Velvet heart-shaped stoopwafels from The Good Batch, and Ramp Butter from Small Scale Food Productions (love owner Nicole Asselin's hot pink toaster oven!)

The Taste Williamsburg Greenpoint event was conveniently held right outside of Brooklyn Brewery (which was also a participant).  So to take a break from the sun, we walked into Brooklyn Brewery and for $20, we got 6 beer tokens and 3 more tasting tickets.  We had our first Brooklyn Summer Ale of the season and a cheese and charcuterie kebab from Bedford Cheese Shop.

We also tried out complimentary samples from Dressler/Dumont/Dumont Burger (a refreshing White Gazpacho with Herb pistou, pine nuts, and white grapes) as well as GuS Soda (we liked the Meyer Lemon and Pink Grapefruit flavors).

As we were about to leave the fair, we spotted the fresh coffee from Oslo Coffee Roasters.  My husband tried their El Salvador coffee and could taste its flavors of wine, almonds, and ripe fruit.  He thought it was pretty good, saying he didn't even need sugar or cream in it.

Using our last food ticket, I finally got my sweet treat.  Though there was tiramisu (Fornino Pizzeria), meringue (Fabiane's) and cookies (Pies 'n' Thighs), I went for the artisanal ice cream from Van Leeuwen's.  A scoop of Oak Barrel-aged Bourbon and Tahitian Vanilla ice cream (from Papua New Guinea) sat on top of a scoop of Ceyon Cinnamon (from bio-dynamic farms in Sri Lanka).  The cinnamon scoop was very strong, but we really liked the bourbon vanilla scoop.

This summer, we're looking forward to dining at a few of these Williamsburg restaurants (it's only a few stops away on the L train) and checking out the Greenpoint Food Market.