FOOD PICS OF THE WEEK - War of the Wings Festival

War of the Wings (***)

333 Waterside Dr., Norfolk, VA 23510

Winner, winner, chicken (wing) dinner. I was lucky to score a complimentary ticket from Costal VA Yelp Elite for this year's War of the Wings. From top to bottom, this was an excellent event. Ok, I will admit that I'm not a huge fan of food festivals. Well, I guess I wasn't a fan of food festivals during my NYC life for a few reasons.

• They tend to be a bit overpriced for the amount of food you get. I recall going to a food truck festival in NYC that was 35ish dollars. After 45 minutes, I left hungry and ended up going to a Thai restaurant a couple of blocks away. The next reason is why I left hungry and frustrated.

• These festivals tend to have massive lines for crumbs of food. Regarding the NYC food truck festival that I mentioned above: I tried to find the shortest line possible, I found it, waited for about 20 minutes, and was disappointed. Turns out the line was for goddamn doggie treats.

• There is rarely any place to comfortably enjoy the food. I guess I'm a little bougie when it comes to this, but I like to sit at a table to consume my food and beverage(s). What's the point of eating (and trying to enjoy yummy food) if you have to struggle to balance the food on all of your limbs while living in fear of dropping it?

• The Fyre Festival of Pizza in NYC. Seriously, who the hell is paying ~$75 to sample various slices of pizza?

However, I experienced NONE of these issues during the War of the Wings festival. For the festival, Coastal VA Yelp Elite provided us with a complimentary VIP pass, which included 10 tasting and 5 cocktail tickets, and access to a VIP "lounge". Depending on the vendor, one tasting ticket gave you 1-3 chicken wings. Based on my experience at the festival, I wouldn't mind dropping ~$35 for VIP tickets for next year's festival. I mean five cocktails alone probably will cost at least 35 bucks.

LOL, I think that I was doing the festival wrong because I used up most of my drink tickets before making a real dent in my tasting tickets.

Kwame S, multipass. Muuuuulllllltttttiiii pass.

The Food:

The festival had about 15 vendors competing to win the "war" on wings. Even Hooters was there, but I hope to God that they did not win. Of my tastings, I really enjoyed two vendors, but I'm not saying that the other ones were bad. I think the Koren fried chicken vendor had the best wings.

If they did not win the war for the best chicken wing. I hope they got an honorable mention for the nicest vendor.

I have to say that I was a bit disappointed with the peace cobbler wing from one vendor.

You know, what? I'll take it back. It wasn't a bad chicken wing; it just wasn't to my taste. I think I'm at an age where I'm not a fan of things that are sweet just for the sake of being sweet. If I want peach cobbler, I'll just get peach cobbler . . . I don't need my chicken to taste like dessert.

Speaking of taste:

I get that you want to have a unique chicken wing sauce, BUT you still gotta season the chicken. I noticed this lack of attention to detail from a few vendors. Y'all spend so much time adding 80 thousand things to the sauce that you forget about the main component of the wing THE ACTUAL CHICKEN WING.

Both of these wings (a chicken parm sauce and a soy, ginger sauce) were AMAZING

This was was interesting, because the sauce contained fish sauce. Actually, I think that vendor was more of a seafood restaurant than a chicken joint. However, I think the sauce actually grew on me as I nibbled (maybe pecked would be a better term) at the chicken wing.

Since I did not take too many pictures, I guess this wasn't much of an FPOTW post. There was a bit of carnage though. ;)

Although you cannot see my face, I was happy because there were plenty of spots throughout Waterside District to sit and enjoy the food.

Food Pic of the Week

Red Rooster (***)

310 Lenox Avenue, NY, NY 10027

Another weekend, another brunch. Believe it or not, we did NOT have bottomless brunch this time around. A good choice because this place does not have bottomless brunch.

Anytime someone visits Harlem, they always want to have a meal at Red Rooster Harlem, but I honestly do not get all of the hype surrounding this place . . . Lemme show the food pic before I get into hater mode.

Cornbread & Gravy with Chorizo, Fried Egg

I gotta say that this dish really did hit the spot. Honestly, I never would have considered eating cornbread and gravy for my brunch. BUT, the restaurant's brunch menu was uuummmmmmm a bit lacking.

Wait a minute! Y'all have only three things on the brunch menu? FYI: There were more cocktails than the ones in the screenshot. I get that this is a fancy restaurant so one should not expect a menu with 20 different brunch and lunch items, but may we get a few more fun brunch items? I mean the owner, Marcus Samuelsson, did win the second season of Top Chef, and I'm sure that contestants from the show have to do some sort of innovative dish challenge.

Social media plug:

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Food Pic of the Week

“Kwablo’s Place” 

OUR APARTMENT IN HARLEM

Earlier this week, I had a wonderful opportunity to attend and participate in a virtual baking class through Yelp Elite.

Chef Mel, a 2X winner of Chopped, took us through the process of making macarons (https://www.bakeitwithmel.com/). Overall, the event was kind of cool, but I admit that the class sometimes was a bit difficult to follow. This had nothing to do with Chef Mel, but because there were 130+ people in the Zoom room. I guess these types of things are better in smaller groups.

Within the first moments of the class, the instructions were kind of intense so I prepared myself a “get it together” cocktail. I was a bit of a struggle, even with chef hubby’s help, but I think I was about average compared to the rest of the Yelp Elite party. Why do I have to make everything a competition? When my macarons were finished some people were still on the first step of making the merengue. For the most part, my result looked like actual macarons.

-Overall, the event was very fun even with the somewhat difficult recipe.

-Chef Mel was really nice and a great instructor. Although the event ended around 9 pm, she was willing to hang out to help the folks that were struggling. She even gave folks the option to message her after the event if they were still having trouble with the recipe. You can check out her website where she sells her at-home baking kits (Link: ***).

-The cohost of the event was kinda annoying because he would talk over Chef Mel while she was giving instructions. I think he was supposed to assist her, but it was like he was trying to take over the event. Also, he was trying way too hard to be funny. MAN, just tell us for hold we have to caramelize the sugar and leave it at that.

-Next time, I think that I’ll just buy my macarons instead of making them. It was a lot of work (maybe not that much) and a lot of dirty dishes for 10 macarons.

-Shoot there was something else. Oh well, I guess it was that import

Happy week before Christmas.

FOOD PIC OF THE WEEK

Mission Ceviche (***) 

 1400 2nd Avenue, New York, NY 10021

We were on a mission to enjoy some ceviche and pisco sours.

Mixto Ceviche

Seco Norteño

Tres Leches

Of course, pisco sour

Food Pic of the Week

The Chelsea Bell (***) 

 316 8th Avenue, New York, NY 10001

I cannot remember the last time I had lunch or dinner in/near midtown.

A classic, Fish & Chips

Usually, I select fish & chips when I have to make a quick decision. Hands down The Chelsea Bell has the best fish & chips in NYC. I pretty much enjoyed this dish because the breading for the fish was out of this world amazing. Honestly, I could have just had the fried breading for my lunch. In my opinion, many restaurants' fish n chips dishes are kind of bland, which "forces" me to dump copious amounts of vinegar and hot sauce to get some flavor. This definitely was not the case at The Chelsea Bell.

Food Pic of the Week

SETTEPANI (***) 

 196 Lenox Avenue, New York, NY 10026

I know this restaurant has been mentioned a few times on this blog. Hey, we are in a pandemic, and my dining options are limited. I guess this entry will be less about food and more about cocktails. More specifically . . . a couple of new cocktails that are on Settepani’s fall menu.

Zucca Ferro (Pumpkin Iron)

Forbidden Fruit

First up, we have the Zucca Ferro (Pumpkin Iron), which has pumpkin, whiskey, lemon juice, and Harlem American Syrup. Since I'm not a fan of too much sweetness in my adult cocktails, I requested the drink without the syrup. Don't nobody need all that sugar getting in the way of his whiskey. ;) This one gets a 9 out of 10.

Next, we have the Forbidden Fruit - a combination of Hendricks Gin, apple cider sorbet, and ginger beer. I'll give this one an 8 out 10, because I wish the cocktail had a bit more gin in it (shocking). Perhaps, next time, I just ask for the gin and apple sorbet for this cocktail. I gotta say that it probably was not a wise choice to order this beverage while dining outside in 52F weather.

Now that I think about it. Since one of the cocktails contained sorbet, I guess this post did have food in it after all.

Food Pic of the Week

Haru Sushi (***) 

 433 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10024

Yelp had a grand virtual event for its Yelp Elite Squad in which we received a $50 voucher redeemable at any Haru Sushi restaurant in the city. So today’s entry will be a picture of a simple sushi spread and a nice bottle of wine.

View fullsize

I was so anxious to eat that I did not even remove the top before taking the picture.

Food Pic of the Week

Harlem Shake (***) 

 100 W 124th Street, New York, NY 10018  

Although this year’s 4th of July was pretty uneventful, I still managed to complete my yearly tradition of having at least one hotdog. 

Snoop Dogg (without cheese), curly fries and a frosé

Cocina del Sur

40 W 38th St., New York, NY 10018  

Well, this is not really a food pic of the week; it's more of a quick post about the most recent Yelp Elite Squad - NYC event that I attended.  According to its Yelp page, Cocina del Sur is a "fast-casual restaurant serving traditional South American dishes right off the grill. [They] serve up a delicate balance of healthy eating and quality Latin comfort food based on locally sourced & organic ingredients" 

Random: I've noticed that we have not had many Yelp elite events over the past couple of months. I wonder what's going on. I like my free stuff. 

Anywho, the event was pretty fun, but there were not too many people in attendance because the restaurant is a bit small. Cocina seems kind of like an in and out kind of place. I probably talked to about 4 people in total, and I don't think that I wanted to befriend them on Yelp.

A pretty "simple" rice bowl with chicken, salmon, and steak with chimichurri sauce (I think it was chimichurri sauce) and some other random fixins. The Brussel sprouts were pretty delicious. Oh, there was a mango (or was it pineapple) salsa that was out of this world. Actually, they should sell that in a jar. 

I liked the spot, but I would not travel out of my way for a rice bowl in midtown. But, game on if I'm in the area. 

Since the restaurant is out of the way for me, of course, I was the first winner of a free meal. 

Random II: What do you think about arepas?

I ask because every time I hear someone in NYC talk about Latin food, he/she will always bring up arepas. Well . . . it's usually tacos first, then arepas. "OMG! _ has the BEST arepas in NYC." And, I'm like  I guess

Here's the thing, I do not dislike arepas. I just haven't found anything that makes them so amazing. If I order chimichurri steak and an arepa happens to be included then great. But, if I were to order chimichurri steak and the kitchen forgot to put the arepa on the plate, I probably would not even care (or even notice). Eh, different strokes for different folks.