mad eats at madison square eats

Have you ever been faced with so many good food choices that your brain shut down and you ended up eating Cheetos for dinner?

Yeah, me neither.

But I did come pretty close to it Thursday night when I dragged the gang to Madison Square Eats for a post-work noshfest. The night prior, I had such a mad craving for the Vinh Asiadog that I looked up Asiadog locations. I've only ever encountered Asiadog at flea markets, concerts and festivals but to my glee, I found out that they have a regular outpost in Nolita. To my even greater delight, I realized there's a mini food fest beside Madison Square Park called Madison Square Eats that's going on until October 21, 2011, and Asiadog was one of its awesome vendors.

So right after work, we made a beeline for Madison Square Eats. I must have wandered around aimlessly for 10 minutes as I racked my brain on what deserved space in my belly the most. While I thought about it, I had the Sydney from Asiadog and some sort of delicious amber ale fresh from the tap at Cannibal. I thought I could figure out what sort of beer it was by looking at their restaurant menu but holy crap! Have you seen that beer menu?! Go take a look. When I'm done gushing over Madison Square Eats, I am so planning my Cannibal invasion.

The Sydney doesn't compare to the Vinh (which deserves a post all its own) but I wanted to try something new. It was pretty yummy, topped with a refreshing relish of mango, red onion, cucumber, cilantro, peanut and fish sauce. A Thai spin on the New York dog.

Mitch picked the Wangding, topped with pork belly and onions, which looked pretty darn awesome. I'm gonna have to try that next time.

I was extremely tempted to get one of the Red Hook Lobster Pound's lobster rolls but $16 for a roll seemed steep (specially when there's a food fair with stuff like $9 pizzas and $4.50 fancy beef dogs). But they looked amazing! Check out that generously buttered roll just overflowing with massive chunks of lobster.

I got the lobster mac n cheese instead, which was pretty awesome. Basically they take some mac n cheese, toss it with a generous helping of the massive chunks of lobster they use for the rolls, cover the whole shebang with cheese, and then blowtorch the cheese into lovely melted goodness. The blurry, terribly lit picture doesn't do it justice but it's a good use of $9 and great for sharing.

Also vying for stomach space at the fair are Fatty Snack's pork buns. For $9 you get two buns overflowing with pork goodness and a soda. De-lish.

To top it all off, dessert! I tried Mitch's waffle from Wafels & Dinges topped with bananas and smothered in Nutella. Amazeballs of course. Bar Suzette is also at the fair whipping out wonderful crepes, as well as Momofuku Milk Bar, which was already closed by then. The lunch crowd must've cleaned them out!

After all that nomming, it would've been prudent to have some lovely tea from Spices & Tease's amazing selection ...

But of course I didn't do that. I had more beer instead. Nobody's perfect.

I have to say that Madison Square Eats is one of the best food fests I've been too. It's small but the selection of vendors is top-notch. The tables and umbrellas are blanketed in Marimekko prints, which ups the cute factor tenfold. And on the day we went, the crowd was small, chic and friendly. I definitely foresee coming back again and again in the next few weeks! Check it out if you haven't gone yet!