This past Saturday was the 5th Vendy Awards and it was my first time attending. Well I didn’t just attend I was part of the Schnitzel & Things crew. Sean Basinski, the leader of the Vendy Awards, said 5 years ago there were only about 50 people that attended the Vendy but over a 1000 people this year. It’s no longer just hot dogs or halal or taco trucks. The new breed of trucks are leaner, quicker and fancier. There are definitely many factors that play into this whole movement. But one thing is for sure, people love street food. I personally love all street foods. As long as you’re making good food people will come.
Click to continue

After Donny and I completed our Food Truck Odyssey, he suggested that we attend the Vendy Awards, the annual event celebrating street vendors and the food they serve. I said I didn’t want to go; it was too expensive to attend, and I could get food from the trucks/carts any time I wanted. Then, about a week before the Vendys, Donny told me he’d be going as the photographer for Schnitzel & Things, nominee in the new Rookie-of-the-Year category. He asked me again if I wanted to go, and this time I relented. I’m glad that I did.

Click to continue…

*UPDATE Please check out the results of our food truck adventure here: The Great Food Truck Odyssey.
The idea of trucks serving food and drinks is definitely not new. You have the classic ice cream truck with its eerie, yeah sounds creepy to me, music playing while driving around town. There’s also the food trucks that serves construction workers. I remember having an In-N-Out truck at my high school too! Best thing ever! Here in NYC you’ll find Halal food trucks parked near office buildings everyday, ready to serve the lunch crowds. So when did this whole food truck craze began? And why didn’t people think of this earlier? Anyways none of these questions really matters, what matters is that they are here and loads of them too.
One random night I came up with the idea of TRYING THEM ALL! A tour of the city, Queens and Brooklyn. Find all food trucks and try them. Then Howard suggested we try all of them IN ONE DAY! Sounds crazy but it might just work. I have already tried Wafels & Dinges, The Dessert Truck and The Treats Truck but I will try them again. Though I’m quite sad to have to leave out the Calexico Taco Cart since technically it’s a cart and not a truck but I have already decided to go this Friday to eat a taco there. A post from Serious Eats about food trucks using Twitter helped a lot and now I am following all the NYC ones. I remember reading about Super Tacos in the UWS so I googled that for more info and found more food trucks. I THINK I have done enough research and is pretty happy with the list I came up with. Pretty sure there are more trucks out there but I couldn’t find any more.
Click to continue to find out my list of trucks

In May of 2008 Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar, killing over 100,000 people and causing massive destruction; it was the worst natural disaster in the history of the country. Here in the United States some Burmese immigrants created a charitable foundation, the Moegyo Humanitarian Foundation, to raise money for the victims, and in June of that year they organized a food bazaar as a fundraiser. The need for money is still great, so they had the second annual food bazaar on June 13th of this year. So while most New Yorkers were out at the Big Apple BBQ Block Party last Saturday, I made my way up to a school in Queens for Burmese food and a great cause.

Click to continue…

One of the great things about living in NYC is that a short train ride can get you just about anywhere in the city. A few weeks ago I went up to Jackson Heights in Queens to meet my friend Jeff for Indian food at the Jackson Diner, one of my favorite Indian places with an awe-inspiring buffet.

Click to continue…

An hour on the train from Brooklyn to Jackson Heights, Queens. Why is there no better way to get from here to there? Instead you have to go into the city to get to either borough which is a waste of time. It’s probably why many people in Queens don’t ever come to Brooklyn and vice versa. It was June 2006 that I was in Jackson Heights last, I wonder why it took me so long to come back. It has become a must stop for all foodies looking for good food. Recently there has been an increased in the Tibetan community and that means GOOD TIBETAN FOOD! Always go eat where the locals eat. Lucky me, one of the person I was going to have lunch is Tibetan so can’t go wrong there. Obviously we left the ordering to him. I never had Tibetan food and didn’t know much about it so I couldn’t compare it to another Tibetan meal. We started the meal with a lassi, I got a mango lassi. Since Tibet and India are neighbors, it’s funny how you can get lassi at a Tibetan restaurant also. I just love it when people exchange cultures and food. And when the food came I totally saw the influence from the Chinese culture. Since this was my very first Tibetan meal I didn’t know what to expect or how things tasted but once the dishes came everything seem so familiar. Like the buns, the chili pork, and the stir-fried noodles. Looked and sounded like a typical Chinese meal. I’m not sure if our friend ordered every spicy thing on the menu or if Tibetan food is that spicy, everything on table was quite spicy. I was also surprised to find myself loving the blood sausage eaten with the bun. I’m not big fan of anything blood but it was quite good and reminded me of Irish blood pudding. Everything was quite good and I was quite full at the end. I guess my biggest problem with it was and this might go for other ethnic foods, what made it Tibetan? If I had pad thai, I knew I was eating Thai food or *duh sushi, I knew I was eating Japanese but what made this meal stand out as Tibetan? I am not sure and maybe next time if I see our friend again I’ll ask him OR just make another trip out to Om hahahaa. It was delicious though!!!

-Om Tibet 4005 73rd St, Jackson Heights, Queens

Posted by Donny