The fun and belly-filling Taste of the UWS returns for its 10th year this weekend. On Friday, the Summer in the City: Surf & Turf ($105) even offers fare from 40 local restaurants (Maison Pickle, Kirsh Bakery, Fat Monk and others) for a walk-around tasting event with unlimited food and alcohol. Saturday it's the Best of the West ($135), where chef/restaurateurs April Bloomfield and Ken Friedman will be honored amidst more local restaurant fare from high-end spots including Jean-Georges, Boulud Sud, Dovetail and Rosa Mexicano.
Future food: Snap a picture of the barricade around the site of the forthcoming &pizza location at 15 W 28th Street between now and May 31st and score a free pizza! Anyone who takes a photo and posts it to social media with the hashtag #NYCandpizza will get a credit for a free pie when the restaurant opens this summer.
Stuff your face with chili on Saturday at the 2017 edition of the Texas Chili Cook-Off, held this year at Solar One in Stuyvesant Cove. Beginning at noon, dozens of teams will compete for the best chili in the batch, offering samples to attendees, who also get unlimited Shiner beer and some live musical entertainment. Individual tickets $65.
Slap on a bib and tuck into some mudbugs on Saturday at the 8th Annual Crawfish Boil ($30) at Sycamore Bar in Flatbush in partnership Gaddy Lane. The bar is offering three seatings (1, 3 and 5 p.m.) to devour a tray of crawfish with the fixings, a side (red beans and rice, southern slaw and corn bread pudding), and a beverage. Your ticket also buys you two raffle tickets to be entered to win gift certificates to Sycamore, food from Gaddy Lane and other prizes.
It may seem a little odd to some, but the apple trees growing in Brooklyn's beautiful Green-Wood Cemetery have been used to make hard apple cider and this Sunday, visitors will have a chance to drink it. The Pouring Green-Wood event ($30) offers a unique opportunity to drink cider made from "Baldwin, Granny Smith, various crab apples, and a yet-to-be-identified apple variety" that Joy Doumis and Jeremy Hammond used to make their special cider, called Proper Cider. Learn how to make your own at the event and drink a bottle of the cider if you attend.
Sunday also brings the Speed Rack Finals, the all-female speed cocktail event that benefits breast cancer charities. Competitors from across the country—including local finalists Anna Wingfield (Mother’s Ruin, Ba’sik) and Kristine Serrano (Forest Hills Station House)—will vie for the Ms. Speed Rack 2017 title by mixing up cocktails with more speed and finesse than their fellow bartenders. To witness this awesome spectacle, purchase $25 tickets here.
Mimi Chengs (Scott Heins/Gothamist)
The New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) leads a dumpling tour on Sunday that highlights immigrant-owned businesses in recognition of the Coalition's 30th birthday. "In light of the current political climate, The Dumpling Tour group decided to focus its effort to help the immigrant community in NYC," said a Coalition spokesperson. "Its founder, Tom Nguyen, comes from a family of Vietnam War refugees, so the issue hits close to home." The tour begins with free coffee at Union Garage at 11:00 a.m., followed by stops at Mimi Cheng's (1 p.m.), Beard Papa's (2:30 p.m.), Empanadas Cafe (4:30 p.m.) and Masha & The Bear (6 p.m.). Join the tour wherever (times are approximate); merch sales benefit NYIC.
