a trip to bryant park
If you’re in NYC during the winter months, you need to go to Bryant Park for dinner. The park hosts dozens of amazing food vendors- South American, Asian, European, you name it. All are fantastic, and I could spend days walking around and sampling meals. The day started with a fast 12 mile run around Queens, so I was famished. Let’s dig in.
To start, we got some Korean beef dumplings.
These dumplings were pretty good. I wouldn’t say the dough or meat was any better than at any other Korean spot; however, dumplings are pretty fantastic to begin with. The sauces were great.
Sauces: 9/10
Dough: 8/10
Filling: 6/10
Overall: 7.2/10
Next, we moved onto kimchi-loaded fries.
These were also pretty solid. The sauces were excellent, but the fries were so-so. The kimchi was very good as well, but there was far too little. In retrospect, I wish I had gone with something other than these fries as an appetizer.
Sauces: 9/10
Fries: 6/10
Kimchi: 8/10
Kimchi apportionment: 3/10
Overall: 6/10
I also tried a puff pastry with sweet potato and chicken from the same stand, and it was fluffy and delicious. That’s surprising, as I wouldn’t expect sweet potato with chicken to work.
Dough: 9/10
Filling: 9/10
Overall: 9/10
Finally, our last stop in Bryant Park: experimental, gluten-free, Colombian empanadas. These rocked.
Apologies for the crappy photo.
I got two flavors: blueberry goat cheese and mango pork.
The blueberry goat cheese was an unexpected hit for both me and Nic. It wasn’t sweet like a pastry- the cheese was a really good, savory goat cheese, and it paired nicely with the blueberry. It reminded me of a cranberry sauce, in that it’s sweetness did not overpower the dish. The crust was pretty good, but not as good as a crust with gluten- well, they warned me.
Filling: 9.5/10
Crust: 7/10
Overall: 9/10
The mango pork was very solid. The mango was a little too understated, leading the pork, which was only so-so, to take over. However, where the mango was perceptible, the empanada shined. The crust was a little better on this one.
Filling: 7/10
Crust: 8/10
Overall: 7.5/10