NY Wine and Food Fest: Grand Tasting Food Porn

Open wide: Entrance to the tent

I'll admit that when I first walked into the New York Wine and Food Festival's Grand Tasting this Saturday, my first thought was: "Oh, it's the Fancy Food Show with better PR." But as I walked around I realized how wrong I was—it's true that there were random supermarket-ish samples à la the Fancy Food Show, but there was also tons of booze–wine, sake, beer and cocktails. Not only that, but some very good chefs were there, offering samples of some very good food.

The highlights, as I ate them:

Bluefish escabeche with pumpkin and fennel from chef Ben Pollinger of Oceana

Hampshire pork bratwurst with chow chow and brown ale mustard from Cookshop's Marc Meyer

Seafood ceviche from Hudson Cafe's Mark Spangenthal

Barbecue beef sliders with pickled okra and hot chiles from Hill Country

A NYC sour from Maker's Mark

The whole shebang on a beautiful day