the great googamooga (brought to you by Jesse)

cover photo from googamooga.com

when i heard about the great googamooga i was bummed, i couldn’t go. with 2 little ones under 5. i have a runners, chasing after him/her is not always fun unless there is a leash involved and i just can’t leash my kids (yet, i’ve really thought about it, insert kind of winky smile here). but then i heard one of my readers was going…and i stalked his instagram stream all day…and then i stalked him on twitter…and then i asked him to guest post (all the stalking helped). i just couldn’t wait to see it all, all of it, the bacon especially because gosh was there bacon there! read on my friends and follow jesse‘s rant about the goods (the bacon), and hopefully next year i will think ahead, get a babysitter and stuff my face full of all sorts of yummiuness (bacon)!!!

by the way, come across something you might think i would like…drop me an email (thefoodyenta at yahoo dot com)

(interested in more googamooga rants? check out my friend sarah @ westchesterlife)

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When The Great GoogaMooga, a two-day festival for foodies being pitched as “an amusement park of food and drink,” was announced back in March, I knew that, come hell or high water, I was going to be there. The festival organizers, Superfly Presents, had accumulated an impressive resume over the years, organizing events such as Bonnaroo, Outside Lands, and Jazzfest. And while they hadn’t previously organized a festival that featured food as the primary draw, the culinary options available at their other events showed a commitment to bringing a higher class of cuisine to the festival scene than the traditional and familiar mix of hot dogs, burgers, and burritos. The initial lineup featured some heavy-hitters from the NYC culinary scene including Tom Colicchio (Craft and Colicchio & Sons), David Chang (Momofuku Milk Bar), April Bloomfield (The Spotted Pig), and Daniel Boulud (DBGB Kitchen & Bar) with more restaurants and vendors added regularly until the festival’s kickoff. In addition to food and drink, the GoogaMooga also promised to provide musical artists playing throughout both days on several stages. Announced headliners included The Roots (Saturday) and Hall & Oates (Sunday) with smaller acts playing throughout both days of the festival such as Lez Zeppelin, an all female Led Zeppelin cover band.

At the time of the announcement, it was stated that GoogaMooga attendees would have two different ticketing options. The first option was a free general admission ticket which would allow attendees to “pay as they go,” purchasing food and drink from vendors as they pleased. The second option was called ExtraMooga. Available for $249.50, ExtraMooga provided ticket holders with the chance to mingle in a private area with food royalty such as Anthony Bourdain and Tom Colicchio as well as celebrities like Aziz Ansari and Patton Oswalt. It also featured access to select food options (like L.A.’s famous Umami Burger) and cooking demonstrations only available to ExtraMooga ticket holders. Additionally, all food and beverages (including alcohol) were included. I briefly considered doing the ExtraMooga, primarily because I’ve actually fantasized about flying out to L.A. just to get an Umami Burger, but decided that if the GoogaMooga becomes an annual event, I could always choose to go all out next year.

What I didn’t anticipate was how much of an adventure it would be to simply get regular admission GoogaMooga tickets. A pre-registration period was set up by EventBrite, an online ticketing service, allowing people to request four registration codes which could then be redeemed for actual tickets. To say that the online pre-registration was a disaster would be a gross understatement. Messages displayed on the screen ensured users that pre-registration would happen in the order that they entered the queue. What actually happened was that the overwhelmed system booted out people who had waited in front of their computers for hours and chaos ensued. I, as well as several friends who also attempted to get codes, found ourselves empty-handed. Seeing as how I was determined to attend, but not willing to fork over the $250 for the ExtraMooga, I needed to figure out a way to get tickets, fast. Which is when I arrived at the following conclusion: No one likes bad publicity. Especially when their names are attached to it. Leveraging the power of social media, I fired off some fairly cordial (but public) complaints on Twitter to both EventBrite and Superfly as well as to the GoogaMooga itself, making sure to use their twitter handles in the tweets so that the complaints would show up on any search for their username. Within hours, I had responses from all three assuring me that I’d be given enough codes for my friends and I for the problems we encountered (smiling…). With tickets acquired, it was on to Phase 2: Planning.

My general rule for large food events is that it’s not enough to have a big appetite and an adventurous palette. You also need a rock-solid plan of attack. Lines at many of these events quickly get out of hand for the more popular items (I waited almost 45 minutes each for Korilla tacos and the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck at last year’s Zagat Food Truck Frenzy). Given that this was the GoogaMooga’s first go-around and that the grounds of Prospect Park were unfamiliar to me, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I wasn’t more than a little concerned with how the day would play out. Fortunately for me, I had two secret weapons.

The first was the GoogaMooga iPhone app which was released in the days leading up to the festival. The app included a map of the grounds and also featured each vendor as well as what they planned on serving. Since the app was designed to function as a personal tool for GoogaMooga attendees, many people were adding different food items to their personal festival wish-lists. This allowed me to get a quick sense early on for which items would be the most highly-sought after, thus informing me that I’d have to prioritize them over others that were less desired.

My second secret weapon was my good friend and frequent gastronomic co-conspirator Jen (who writes the most excellent Flavor Profiles blog). Because of scheduling conflicts, Jen and I were unable to go on the same day to GoogaMooga. Since she was planning on going the first day, I knew I’d be able to hit her up for tips and tricks to use on day two. While I expected to get a text message with a few bits of advice, what I wound up getting at the end of day one was a novel-length missive complete with photos and mini-reviews of the food she tried. To sum up some of her more salient points (and some of these bits of advice should be helpful to anyone planning on going to any outdoor food event):

1. The beverage lines quickly become the longest because of the heat. Freeze large, unopened bottles of water to bring with you to the event. We were permitted to bring in one unopened bottle per person and they were super cold throughout the day.
2. Napkins are fairly limited so bring wet wipes since most of the street food requires hand use and is extremely greasy.
3. Arrive as close to the opening time as possible. Many people don’t arrive for the first few hours and lines will be short early-on.
4. As I suspected, lines at the Hamburger and Pizza Experiences quickly grew to over an hour in length on that first day so hitting them up early should be a priority.
5. Parking was extremely limited so pick a garage out online and use the GPS to get you there. We actually lucked out and found street parking across the street from the lot we picked.
6. Shaded spots in the park were limited as well. There were a few hidden nooks and crannies in the park that Jen had snapped photos of to guide us. Since we were bringing toddlers with us to the GoogaMooga, bringing a blanket and finding shade would be critical.
7. Jen’s take on Do or Dine’s foie gras donut (which was my pre-festival #1 target) was that it was VASTLY overrated. She pointed out that she knew I’d probably still go for it but that I should know what I was getting myself into.

Last but not least, I spent some time the night before checking Twitter to see what other people’s feedback was from the first day. I was not too thrilled with what I saw. A search for ‘googamooga tip’ produced tweets such as:

1. @MeTheMessinger: Tip to #GoogaMooga patrons: avoid waiting 30+ minutes for an over priced over cooked slider by eating at the ACTUAL RESTAURANT.
2. @ChadMumm: Pro tip: don’t go to the Great Googa Mooga. http://instagr.am/p/K03_0nDyg0/
3. @ItsMeghanT: Pro tip: instead of waiting in line at @GoogaMooga, leave and get a frozen yogurt from the truck right outside the park. Also, don’t go in

Coupled with news that the ExtraMooga had run out of food early on the first day and that the weird “Googa Moolah” system they were employing to assist with the purchasing of beverages had failed gloriously, I had to wonder if we hadn’t bitten off more than we could chew (pun intended). Morale in our group was sinking and expectations were very low.

Fortunately, the day started off beautifully with a perfect combination of fantastic weather, a smooth drive down from Westchester, and the aforementioned free street parking we were able to find close to the Prospect Park entrance. After a walk through the park, we arrived within five minutes of the start time and had no issues getting into the GoogaMooga through the ticket holder and security checkpoints. The entrance we came through was located in close proximity to the Hamburger Experience.  Since I knew it would be mobbed later, we decided to get it out of the way early. After all, what’s better to eat at 11 A.M. on an empty stomach than greasy burgers?

The Hamburger Experience area’s fun retro motif (featuring famous quotes about hamburgers and 80’s style arcade games redesigned to reflect the GoogaMooga theme) gave us a good idea of what to expect throughout the festival. The number one draw for me there was a stand for April Bloomfield’s The Spotted Pig. Much of the early feedback from festival-goers had their burger with Roquefort cheese and shoestring fries as one of the best dishes available. When we arrived at the stand, we found out that they were about 20 minutes away from being ready to serve. And while I was excited to get a chance to try the burger, I was disappointed to find out that the other Bloomfield offering that was listed on the GoogaMooga app, a grilled skate dish with ramps, fingerlings, and chiles, was not available.

While waiting, we wandered over to the Dumont Burger stand to get our palettes warmed up with some sliders. A plate of 2 mini-cheeseburger sliders with tomato, onions, pickle was a nice way to whet our appetites for what lie ahead the rest of the day. While nothing too spectacular, it was a very solid slider. We wound up also purchasing one of their vanilla shakes for my two-year old son. It was not overly thick and along with a solid vanilla flavor it contained hints of caramel throughout.

Sometimes, single decisions can wind up setting off a chain of events that changes the course of an entire day. That moment at the GoogaMooga had arrived for us. From our spot in The Hamburger Experience, I was able to glance around the majority of the festival and noticed that there were little to no lines to be found (with the exception of the line for the Maine Lobster Roll at Luke’s Lobster which was already over 50 people deep). Since it still appeared that we had some time left until The Spotted Pig was ready to serve, I decided to make a quick run down to as many vendors as I could hit up that had no lines. The idea was simple: Grab as much food in as short of a time as possible and then grab a picnic table to feast down with my friends. If the plan worked out well, we would still have plenty of time to get to the other parts of the festival before the lines got too long. And if the plan failed….well…let’s just say I didn’t really see any downside besides being the weird guy trying to balance and carry a bunch of different foods in his arms. Quickly making my way down the closer side of the festival, I mentally inventoried what stands had little to no lines and cross-referenced it against the foods I had heard positive reviews for. A few minutes later, I arrived back at the picnic table, at the same time as my friends with our Spotted Pig burgers, armed with several stands worth of goodies.

The Spotted Pig’s burger was one of the more hyped up dishes coming into the day and it certainly did not disappoint. While I’m not a big blue cheese fan, the melted Roquefort included with the burger nicely complemented the meat which was a Pat LaFrieda blend. The bun actually more closely resembled a brioche-style roll in taste than a traditional burger bun and it added a buttery texture that would have otherwise been missing. The burger itself was cooked to medium-rare perfection and was still plenty juicy when it arrived off the grill. While the listing indicated that the dish came with shoestring fries, it turns out they were not ready to be served which was not necessarily a bad thing considering that I was hesitant to use precious stomach space on accompaniments like fries.

Another one of the items I had heard great things about coming into the day were the Tebaski “Japanese style” chicken wings from Kasadela. These chicken wings were sold by themselves or as a combination accompanied by nori (roasted seaweed sheets). I asked the chef how she would recommend them and she said her preferred eating method was to wrap each wing in a sheet of nori and chow down. This was the most universally liked dish of the day from our group (no one thought it was lower than second best dish of the day). The wings were crispy, yet not greasy, and minimally sauced with a flavor somewhat comparable to Bon Chon chicken. The addition of the nori sheet actually added another layer of taste (salt) and texture (crispiness) that had me wondering what else I could add nori to at home to, as Emeril would say, “kick it up a notch.”

Next up, we sampled General Loko’s Fried Chicken Bao from Baohaus, which is known for their creative takes on Taiwanese street food. Baos are essentially steamed buns that are filled with various toppings. The most popularized kind are the steamed pork buns (Char Siu Bao) that are typically found at Chinese Dim Sum restaurants. Unlike the more popular, denser pork buns, the buns here were thinner and lighter and were more akin to a soft taco shell than a traditional bun. Taste-wise though, the bun itself was identical to those other iterations.  The chicken inside was a kind of playful take on General Tso’s chicken, indicated by the name. Resembling a fresher version of a chicken finger, it featured a sweet sauce which added a touch of sweetness and spiciness without making it overly cloying.

The next stand (located in Tony’s Corner, a selection of restaurants curated by Anthony Bourdain), M. Wells, was another one that I had looked forward to as early as the announcement of their inclusion in the festival. Their similarly named restaurant was opened by husband-and-wife team Canadian-born Hugue Dufour and Queens native Sarah Obraitis in a diner, near the stomping grounds of my youth in Long Island City, back in 2010. Their avant-garde cuisine was a huge hit with both critics and diners before they lost their lease last summer. Since I didn’t have the opportunity to try their food then, I was really excited to get an opportunity to do so now. Their dish, a horse bologna & foie gras grilled cheese, was unbelievably decadent. There is a point where something can cross the line from rich into excess and this approached, if not exceeded, that line. The flavors were right on but the abundance of grease definitely detracted a bit from the experience. On a side note: I first thought the sign said “Horse Bologna.” Then when I got back to the table, I thought I must have been seeing things and it must have said “House Bologna.” Upon further review, it did, in fact, say “Horse.” Does this mean I ate horse? Don’t know. Don’t wanna know. I’m too afraid of The Walking Dead-like implications of eating horse.

The last dish we tried from our first wave of attack on the festival was the Chihuahua Crif Dog from Crif Dogs, an outfit down on St. Marks Place. The Chihuahua Crif Dog jazzes up the traditional version by wrapping the dog in bacon and adding avocado and sour cream. No new ground broken here but still a nice spin on an old classic. We also wound up getting some of their Tater Tots as well as a couple of Arnold Palmers (half unsweetened iced tea and half lemonade, also known as a “Half & Half”). Nothing particularly new and innovative with the tots but a decent homemade version nonetheless. The Arnold Palmers were pretty close to perfect in terms of their ratio of sweetness. I actually prefer my Half & Halfs with more lemonade than iced tea which I realize actually makes them, in actuality, not half and half. Whatevs.

After finishing up the first set of dishes, we meandered over to the Marketplace which was a collection of vendors selling smaller bites and items you could take home with you (such as flavored popcorn, baked goods, etc.). One complaint I had heard about the previous day was that the Far Rockaway based frozen banana stand, The Big Banana, ran out of their chocolate-covered bananas pretty quickly. We wound up purchasing their plain chocolate-covered frozen banana, their peanut and sea salt version, as well as “The Elvis,” which in addition to the chocolate coat featured peanuts and bacon. I found the sweetness of the chocolate and the banana to be perfectly complimented by the saltiness of the bacon and peanuts. Considering the heat, it was a nice treat and I definitely understood why they ran out so quickly the day before. As George Bluth once famously said: “There’s always money in the banana stand!”

While finishing up the bananas, I looked over and noticed no line near Do Or Dine’s foie gras donut stand. Despite the fact that my stomach was pleading with me to take a break, my intense dislike of standing on line aimlessly for hours on end helped me to forge ahead. After purchasing the donut, I noticed no lines for both Bromberg Bros. Blue Ribbon Chicken and DBGB Kitchen & Bar. When the guys manning the Blue Ribbon Chicken booth told me that thier line had reached peak wait times of an hour and forty-five minutes on Saturday, I knew that whether I wanted to or not, the time to make the move was now.

As I mentioned earlier, the foie gras donut from Do or Dine was probably the dish I was the most excited about trying. The donut, jelly-style in shape, was cooked and then filled with both foie gras and a strawberry-cumin jam. Splitting it open, I was surprised both by the amount of foie gras inside the donut as well as the temperature, which was leaning towards the cold side of room temperature. While the idea of the foie gras donut grossed out a few of my friends, the idea of meat filled pastries have been around forever (empanadas and beef patties being just a few examples). However, after my first bite, it was clear that something had gone horribly awry. The first things I tasted were the sweetness of the donut glaze and the jam. By the third chew, my mouth was overtaken by the richness and creaminess of the foie. Perhaps individually, the components, in and of themselves, were fine but together they created a gastronomic Frankenstein’s monster in my mouth. Really, just horrible. In fact, my facial reaction from that first bite ensured that almost no one else in my group would even dare to try it despite my best attempt to use the common refrain:  “This is horrible….Taste it!”

Next up, we tried the Bromberg Bros. Blue Ribbon Chicken Fried Chicken Wings. Between the wait times on Saturday and the reviews online, this seemed to be one of the universally loved dishes of the festival. I ordered a basket of half a dozen wings for us to share. Compared to Kasadela, the wings were much bigger in size which is not always a good thing for fried chicken wings, in my opinion. The fried coating of the wings was much more compact, with ridges on the skin tightly bound together. After my first couple of bites, the only thing I could think to compare it to, flavor-wise, were BBQ-flavored Pringles. I could definitely understand why this would be a hit with the crowd. The skin was extraordinarily crispy and the taste was different from most standard chicken wing fare. And while I agreed that they were quite good, my opinion was skewed a bit by the comparison to the Kasadela wings we had tried earlier and which I thought were far superior. In terms of the size, since the wings were so meaty, once you got past the skin, there was still a lot of meat left with nothing to tie it together with the flavor from the outside coating. That’s probably why my preference is for less-meaty wings which allow for chunks of crispy skin with every bite.

The Thai sausage from Daniel Boulud’s DBGB Kitchen & Bar was another treat that I wound up having some mixed feelings about. The sausage was house-made and was complimented by lemon grass, red curry, green papaya, peanuts, cilantro and chili sauce. From a flavor perspective, it was pretty slammin’. The big detractor here was the roll. I’m not sure if this issue was unique to the sausage we got or if this was a common issue but the size of the bun in relation to the size of the sausage was way off proportionally. There was way too much bread. And while many people might not think that’s such a big deal, history has been filled with food issues stemming from inappropriate bread size.

After polishing those plates off, we knew we needed a break….but not before a little drinking and dessert! The beverage lines, the length of which were complained about online ad nauseum, were extremely manageable and moved very quickly. For something sweeter, we moved back to The Sweet Circus, an area of the festival housing many of the dessert vendors. A few of my favorites, David Chang’s Momofuku Milk Bar and Big Gay Ice Cream Truck, were there but, since stomach space was running low, it made sense to rule out anything that I had already tried before (although if Big Gay Ice Cream had been selling actual ice cream instead of just shakes, I could have been swayed). We quickly decided on going with something not so heavy: The Wooly Mango Tango from Wooly’s Ice, a shaved mango ice with cut mangoes, strawberries, topped with strawberry syrup. Unlike some “shaved ice” imitators that claim to be authentic, this one had the same texture and consistency as pure snow. The consensus among our group was that it was extremely refreshing with one person actually saying it might be their favorite thing from the whole festival.

After a brief respite under a shady tree with the kids, we heard that there were an extra set of stands near the second concert stage at the back of the festival. And that’s when I saw it. Almost as if it had stepped out of a Pink Floyd-induced nightmare, a giant metal statue of a pig appeared with the word Hammagedon written in Iron Maiden-style lettering. And the topper was an actual pig roasting on a spit in an oven located at the center of the beast. Just to the left of it was the most beautiful name of a food stand that any “good” Jewish boy like myself could ever hope to hear: Bacon Land! On the menu at Bacon Land was the Bacon Flight, a bacon tasting plate featuring seven different pieces of bacon from across the country. The pieces included on the plate were:

1. Shaller Weber Double Smoked Bacon (NY)
2. Landhaus Grilled Maple Bacon (NY)
3. Benton’s Hickory Smoked Country Bacon (TN)
4. Burgers’ Smokehouse Dry Cured Bacon (CA)
5. Sam Edward’s Peppered Bacon (VA)
6. Flying Pigs Farm Bacon (NY)
7. Nueske’s Wild Cherrywood Smoked Bacon (NY)

And while each item provided a different take on the original smoked pork classic, the real standout on the plate was the Benton’s Hickory Smoked Country Bacon. I first heard of Benton’s during a television segment about a sandwich called the Elvis Panini being served at The Patterson House in Nashville, Tennessee.  The panini featured peanut butter, banana, and parsley pressed together with Benton’s bacon and looked, even on TV, unlike any bacon I could remember eating before. In fact, Benton’s holds such high esteem among chefs that many high-end bacon dishes specifically call for Benton’s bacon (which is available for order via their online site). It eats almost like a bacon steak. A truly sensational and recommended experience for any bacon lover. I actually plan on putting in an order for some sometime this summer.

At the Bacon Flight, we also tried their Maple Cream Soda. I was really disappointed with it. Wafting in the aroma, you could get hints of maple syrup and fresh vanilla but upon tasting it, it was kind of a flat, tasteless mess. As a group we were divided on it, with a couple of people really liking the subtle flavor. When I think soda though, I think bubbles. And if I can’t at least get that, the flavor (or lack thereof) is of a somewhat secondary concern.

On our way back from the Bacon Flight, we made one more stop at the stand for Tom Colicchio’s Craft. Chef Colicchio is one of the brightest names in the culinary world from his stint as Head Judge on Bravo’s Top Chef and his Craft empire (including the sandwich chain ‘wichcraft and his Craftsteak steakhouses). Their festival offering was a “Dirty Duck Dog,” homemade duck hot dogs topped with pickled cabbage and black garlic. The pickled cabbage had a bit of a citrus kick to it which gave it a nice pucker. The line of black garlic was nice but, just as with the DBGB Thai Sausage, the bun overwhelmed the rest of the dog. While the flavors all melded together nicely, I wasn’t as crazy about this as other reviewers were.

At that point, we glanced around the festival and saw that the lines we had heard so much about on Saturday were starting to develop. And although it meant missing out on some of the headlining musical acts, the kiddies were getting tired and we decided to make our way towards the exit knowing that we probably got a chance to sample more of the food offerings than most. Considering all of the negative hype we had heard coming in, it was clear that the event organizers made some quick changes to ensure that Sunday’s experience was significantly improved over the previous day. Having taken advantage of all of the advice we were able to glean, it was safe to say that the day had to be considered a huge success. As my friend Sarah summed it up on the way out: “Hashtag winning!”

Some final thoughts:

- If I had to pick favorites: My three favorites dishes of the day were the Spotted Pig burger, the Kasadela wings, and the Bacon Flight (with the Benton’s bacon probably being the best single bite of the day). I’ll probably make it a point to get down to both Spotted Pig (though not for the burger) and Kasadela (definitely for the wings) sometime soon.

- I probably would have done Big Gay Ice Cream Truck’s shakes if the flavors being offered had appealed to me. The Horchata one available on Saturday was nowhere to be found Sunday, with Orange Creamsicle and Ginger Curry being the only options for us.

- While it did look like there were some good slices of pizza floating around, I didn’t feel the need to put that on my “must-grab” list. Feedback on the options available there was good though.

- I had originally planned on picking up some food to go from the Marketplace (including some honeycomb-chocolate popcorn that I heard was crazy good) but completely spaced as we exited.

- Most importantly, I learned that if there is a choice between going on the first day or the second day of a new type of event like this, always try to go the second day. You’ll be getting a much more polished event and you can learn from other people’s missteps to maximize your festival going experience.