Grubbing at Madison Square Eats

Beautiful day for a food festival

It is that time of the year again, when food festivals are abound and streets are filled with food trucks that were on hiatus during the chilly days of winter. I am still waiting for my favorite food trucks to hit the streets but until then I will have to settle for the lesser liked but equally tasty food from Madison Square Eats.

Madison Square Eats is a food festival that is located near Madison Square Park around 23rd st and Broadway. The actual location of the festival is the pedestrian plaza located between 24th and 25th street along Broadway.

As you walk into the area, you are hit with the aroma of different cuisine from all around you, strongest of which this time was the Mexican Street food vendor. There are a variety of food vendors that setup their booths in this festival some of which include the famous Eataly, Ilili, Red Hook Lobster Pound, and Momofuku Milk Bar.

After scouting out different food options, we settled on trying out a few places. First up was the Red Hook Lobster Pound booth, which was also our favorite last year. Last year we had the shrimp roll and the lobster salad roll so this year we went for the warm buttered lobster roll. It was topped off with red sprinkles which looked like indian crushed chili pepper powder. The lobster was not some processed version so you knew you were eating actual lobster meat. 

We enjoyed the roll and moved onto the vendor next door, Graffiti|Metaphor, a combination of street and traditional cuisine from India. We had a lengthy conversation with the chef at the booth about the various types of food he was offering and we finally settled on the vegetarian burger. What came our way surprised us a bit. It looked like a sautee of different vegetables in Indian spices, definitely not processed patties that you usually get from other places. It came with fries accompanied by ketchup and chipotle mayo. The burger was abosolutely delicious and even though it was small (even smaller when split between two people), it definitely was worth it for the rich taste that it had. 

At this point, we had eaten a decent amount of food but we figured we had room for at least one more savory meal before we moved onto the desserts. A few booths down from Graffiti|Metaphor was the Hong Kong Street Cart booth. After looking over the menu and finding everything to be either pork or mixed with alcohol we found the one dish we could both agree to eat, a salt and pepper seasoned fried shrimp dish. Strangely, the same vendor was selling Thai Iced Tea as well so we purchased that and waited for our order. The order took sometime to prepare and we nearly ended up finishing our iced tea in that time. 

Salt and Pepper Shrimp

When we dug into our shrimp dish, it had a unique spicy taste to it which we couldnt figure out until we mixed in the salad that it had been placed on. The salad contained the usual lettuce bits but it also had pieces of crunchy bits which we could only imagine were some kind of dough and lightly crushed round red chili and green peppers. The spices from this mix and the salt fried shrimp made a good combination and we enjoyed it thoroughly. 

Calde Calde

At this point, being a bit stuffed with savory, we decided to get our sweet tooth fulfilled. We were able to acquire some seating at this point so after saving the seats I went off to find out dessert. After walking around and scoping out the options, I settled on buying some macaroons, Nutella and Red Velvet to be precise, from Macaron Parlour and Calde Calde from Eataly. As we bit into the Calde Calde, the hazelnut chocolate poured out onto each one of our hands and made a mess but luckily we were able to acquire wet wipes from a food booth and after enjoying the macaroons and the chocolate filled pizzette, we were able to clean our hands properly. The macaroons were very tasty and flavorful even though they were quite tiny. The Calde Calde was a first for me but I definitely thought that it was a good combination of hot chocolate and fried dough. 

After being stuffed to the brim with sweet and savory treats, it was time for us to head out of the festival and onto our next destination. However, by no means we were done with this place. It is a place well worth multiple visits to enjoy all the various food options and possibly figuring our which restaurant is worth a visit after the festival is over. I highly recommend that you make the trek out to this food heaven and try some of the delicious offerings that each vendor has out there.