A Brooklyn delight spreads to LA, a transcontinental delight! A bunch of food vendors, a plethora of people selling their crafts. A feast for the eyes and a feast for the mouth, and I'm so eager to go that I stalk every local article and blog looking for which booths to hit up.
We start at Ugly Drum, the pit-smoked pastrami of our wildest ruben dreams. We split a Quarter-Pound Pastrami, a polite way to say half-sandwich because we don't want to fill up too fast. The photo doesn't look like much, but my cell phone camera sucks. Because nothing that comes out of Ugly Drum is remotely ugly. The pastrami glows deep, velvety red, like the smoldering coals from which it came. The fat is so finely marbled, that it all falls apart in your mouth.
Nothing ugly at Ugly Drum because all the ugly lives a couple stalls down. Enter Brothecary. Hot on the heels of the bone-broth-fixes-everything trend, they gouge you for ten dollars for a single Bone broth XLB. The broth is mediocre, especially when served watered-down and lukewarm.
But here's where it gets really ugly. Take a close look at this dumpling. It is RAW. They literally didn't even cook the thing, and they have the nerve for charge ten dollars for a neat little package of food poisoning.
Friends always make me feel better when frauds like Brothecary have me seething. Donut Friend bring some joy; Joy Lavender, to be exact. The dense-yet-fluffy ring of glaze is impeccably balanced, and the lavender adds its fragrance.
The underrated Apple Fritter is fresh, a fried n' fruity piece of perfection.
Disappointment strikes once again, when we find that the iconic Banh Oui is a big banh NON. The Pork Belly Banh Mi is served on a mediocre not-quite baguette, and the slabs of pork have zero flavor. Their travel grill sucks the savor out of the pork, and it drowns in a full cup of aioli...which tastes like orange-colored mayo.
The donuts were so good, and I wanted to give the desserts a second chance. The desserts don't deserve a second chance if they're served by Paloma's Paletas. Pineapple Mint Mojito is a pop-shaped frozen water with no more than ten drops of pineapple juice inside. The single mint leaf in the middle is the highlight of this paleta, and it overpowers the pineapple-ish water. I like my popsicles to be lighter and not so sweet, but this is straight-up sucking on an ice cube...an extremely expensive ice cube.
No way something like this would happen in Brooklyn! A street fair of this caliber should have died in an hour and yet Smorgasburg has persisted for seven years. I cannot believe this is what I drove all the way up here for, and I hope it won't be around much longer!
No comments:
Post a Comment