Handicapping the competition for Brisket King of NYC

Brisket is big business these days. After years of struggling in the Passover ghetto, the notoriously fickle cut of beef is having a full- fledged moment in the sun, thanks in large part to the awareness campaign begun some six years ago by New York’s Texas BBQ pioneers, Hill Country Barbecue Market. Unlike most other smoky locales, which worship the almighty hog, Texas has always been cattle country and, as the old saying goes, smoke ’em if you’ve got ’em. That’s not to say brisket doesn’t exist in other traditions, but it’s always been the ugly-duckling cousin to specialties like Carolina whole hog or Kansas City ribs.

Not so in Texas. There it’s all beef and it’s all good, from the Flintstones opening credits-worthy heft of the ribs to the Central Texas snap and spice of sausage. But the real test of the pitmaster’s art is the brisket—done wrong it’s a tragic husk, a cat’s cradle of stringy, lifeless fibers bound by a salty rub (no sauce to save you here). To do it right takes dedication and skill, which may be why New York chefs are almost monomaniacally focused on it (just ask Brisket Town-née-Lab’s Daniel Delaney). Now lifers and dilettantes are chasing the deckle dragon, after the perfect balance of fatty excess and smoke-laced, lean meat.

At next week’s Brisket King of NYC showdown, the city’s boldest will square off against reigning champion John Brown Smokehouse for the crown and the glory. The meaty affair now in its third year (the second under such regal auspices) is organized by Food Karma Projects, which could lead a master class in hosting tasting events. They’ve crowned victors in everything from gumbo to cassoulet, invaded Governors Island with pigs and celebrated craft beers, always with enough food and drink to go around and a ticket-selling philosophy that understands giving attendees a little elbow room is worth more than selling out to capacity every time.

While the rules of competition do not specify the BBQ treatment, it’s a safe bet that at least 75 percent of the dishes on offer will have gone through the smoker in some capacity; the lineup includes all of the city’s BBQ brisket Brahmins. There for the fight will be the aforementioned Delaney; Smorgasburg darlings and now brick-and-mortar East Villagers Mighty Quinn’s; Harlem grandpappy Dinosaur BBQ; the brand-new Fletcher’s Brooklyn BBQ, run by a former pitmaster for heavy hitters Wildwood and R.U.B.; lone ranger Robbie Richter, the Hill Country O.G.; and the reigning champs John Brown, back to defend their honor.

They’ll be rounded out by a broad selection of wild-card restaurants, from the Mediterranean/Middle Eastern-inflected Taboonette to the Caribbean Mango Seed, the Creole Tchoup Shop, and the grilled cheese specialists Melt Shop. Most interestingly, also on the roster are farms being represented by hired-gun chefs, clearly angling more for name recognition than for a chance at the big crown.  Of these, the most curious is Møsefund Farm’s apocryphal Mangalitsa pork brisket, which, we’re predicting, will get tons of audience love but no official recognition, like the Olympic figure skaters who were back-flipping before judges would give them any points for it.

Competition will be tough, but ultimately the field will be easily divided into a lot of sliced BBQ briskets served slider-style with a slaw, some just-like-bubbe-used-to-make braised versions, some way-outta-left-field (last year saw a deep-fried, panko-breaded meatball) and a few creative smoked treatments. The judges’ top three will be diplomatically representative, but our money’s on John Brown for the crown, for the Kansas City-style competitor has a secret weapon none of the Texas guys can match: burnt ends. Traditionally, the rub-encrusted, fatty ends of each brisket are saved up over the course of the week, held in their juices like a proper braise, and offered as a blink-and-you’ll miss-it special at the best KC smokehouses. It’s the best of both worlds; truly a brisket fit for a king.

Brisket King of NYC will take place Wednesday, Feb. 20, from 7 to 9 p.m. (VIP hour with open bar from 6 to 7 p.m.) at Santos Party House, 96 Lafayette St. Tickets are $45 or $75; to purchase, visit BrisketKingNYC.com.

Have you been tempted every year to visit the Chocolate Show but ultimately turned off by the overwhelming scale and trade-show vibe? 92Y’s Chocolate Fest is a kinder, gentler (and boozier) version, featuring local favorites like The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck and Liddabit Sweets providing tastings alongside prestigious international chocolatiers like Guittard. The event also features a screening of the short film Radical Chocolate, about a tree-to-bar chocolate-making collective, wine and cocktail pairings and a sampling of chocolate-friendly cheeses.

June 3, 7:30 p.m.; $29. 92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Ave., 92y.org.

Big Apple BBQ Block Party

In some parts of the country, BBQ competitions are an integral piece of the summer. While New York City is sadly lacking in this department, for the past 10 years, Danny Meyer, owner of Blue Smoke and the Shake Shack empire, among many others, has been trying to make it right. His Big Apple Block Party assembles pitmasters from around the country, including perennial rib champion Mike Mills and whole-hog maestro Ed Mitchell, allowing festival-goers to sample the breadth of this country’s regional BBQ styles without ever leaving Midtown. Live music and seminars in the park provide a respite from all the smoke, should you need it.

June 9-10, 11 a.m.-6 p.m.; $8 per plate. Madison Square Park, babbq.com.

Eat Drink Local Week

Let’s face it: Restaurant Week isn’t what it used to be. These days, it’s strictly for amateurs who don’t mind the worst tables and prix-fixe menus made up of the cheapest, least creative dishes on a restaurant’s roster. The tristate area’s Edible publications, including Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens editions, have teamed up to fill the void, presenting this annual week of special, seasonal menus at participating restaurants, tasting events and discounts at food and wine shops. Each year they choose a number of local ingredients to highlight; this year it’s spinach, eggs, goat, radishes, rosé wine, porgy, fava beans and hops. Not sure what you can make with all that, but it sounds pretty tasty. 

June 23-30. ediblemanhattan.com.

Nathan’s Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest

More a cautionary tale than anything else, this legendary contest, now in its 96th year, is worth a visit just to see the lengths to which some people will go for a free meal. Will Joey Chestnut take the prize again for the sixth year in a row? Will Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas still be impossibly skinny after another year on the eating circuit? Will former champ Takeru Kobayashi stage another rogue eat-off in protest of the organized event? You’ll have to show up to find out, and maybe grab a hot dog yourself from the Coney Island institution (take your time eating it, though). 

July 4, 3 p.m. Corner of Surf & Stillwell Aves., nathansfamous.com.

Foraging in Prospect Park

Foraging, long the purview of the homeless and freegan hippies, has been surging in popularity thanks to locavore chefs like Rene Redzepi in Copenhagen. Join the elite by going on a foraging expedition with expert Leda Meredith, followed by a tasting at nearby restaurant Beer Table. Though you may not find enough to supplant your weekly Key Food run, it’s sure to be more fruitful than your everyday walk in the park.

July 15, 2 p.m.; $30 for Slow Food members, $40 for nonmembers. Prospect Park, meet at Grand Army Plaza entrance, slowfoodnyc.org.

Parked! A Food Truck Festival

Food trucks in the city are often harassed for parking in metered spots, which are off-limits to vendors. This summer, they’ll get a free parking pass at the South Street Seaport, where over 30 of them will be Parked! all day long. Music, drinks and activities for kids will round out the day of fun; check the website to see just what they’ve got lined up this year. A VIP pass will get you a drink ticket, 10 free dishes from 10 of the trucks and a dedicated lineup at all of them so you don’t have to wait around with all those regular jerks.

Aug. 4, 10 a.m.-9 p.m.; free, VIP passes $50. South Street Seaport, meanredproductions.com.

Pig Island

They take pigs (about 80 of ’em). They put them on an island. They get 20 of New York’s top chefs to cook them, add liberal doses of NY state beer and wine and set you free to drink and eat all day long. If that doesn’t sound like a wonderful dream you once had, well, you’d better be a vegetarian. Pig Island is your chance to enjoy hog-centric delights like maple-bacon sticky buns, Sriracha-glazed suckling pig and pork belly sliders all on the charmingly anachronistic Governors Island, while benefiting Food Systems NYC and City Harvest.

Sept. 1. Governors Island, pigisland.com.

86th Annual Feast of San Gennaro

Until two years ago, you went to the Feast of San Gennaro to drink luridly colored frozen daiquiris, buy T-shirts emblazoned with “Fuhgeddaboudit” and avoid getting into a fight with an extra from Jersey Shore. Then, Torrisi Italian Specialties, the restaurant that has singlehandedly elevated Italian-American cuisine, opened a stall there selling slyly Chinese-inflected mozzarella sticks and roast pork sandwiches, and chefs from downtown restaurants like WD-50, L’Artusi and The Spotted Pig followed suit. No word yet on this year’s vendors, but it’s sure to be worth the risk of a fistfight or two.

Sept. 13-23. Mulberry St. betw. Canal & Houston Sts., sangennaro.org.

Indonesian Food Bazaar

One of the borough’s best-kept secrets is slowly coming out of the shadows, but it hasn’t outgrown its small-town feel just yet. This bazaar pops up in the parking lot of Masjid Al-Hikmah, a hub for the Queens Indonesian community, during the warmer months. All of the vendors are community members who arrive with foil trays of long-stewed rendang, charcoal grills for smoky satay skewers, fritters, dumplings and amazingly multicolored dessert drinks. Don’t miss the gado gado, for which friendly church ladies grind the salad’s sweet, garlicky peanut dressing in a mortar and pestle to order.

Third Sunday of every month (roughly, check online), 11 a.m.-4 p.m.; free (donations to the mosque requested). Masjid Al-Hikmah, 48-01 31st Ave. (at 48th St.), Astoria, masjidalhikmahnewyork.org.

Smorgasburg

The organizers of the Brooklyn Flea realized the dirty secret of most street fairs: People only come for the food. In response, they created the now-monstrous Smorgasburg, a food-only version of their all-purpose artisanal marketplace. If you want to shop, you can buy pickles, olive oil or cutting boards, but the real reason to visit is for the one-of-a-kind eats. Favorites include Shorty Tang & Sons’ cold sesame noodles, from the family that created the dish some 40 years ago, and Bon Chovie’s fried anchovies, last season’s unlikely snack hit. You’ll never look at a mozzarepa at a tube-sock street fair again.

Saturdays, 11 a.m.-6 p.m.; free.Williamsburg waterfront betw. N. 6th & 7th Sts., brooklynflea.com. 

Illustration by Brian Taylor

It’s still the early part of the season, the good part, when summer hours kick into effect (for the luckiest among us), before the tourist invasion starts and the city starts to heat up and emit that special odor that’s uniquely New York in August.

There’s no better time to be in the city for those who love culture or the outdoors. Every street corner seems to sing with its own event or festivity, and even the most jaded New Yorker can find something to pique their interest.

Those fortunate enough to live here are in the epicenter of a marathon celebration that runs all the way through the dog days of August.
Inside, we’ve created a handy-dandy guide to the best live concerts, film festivals, theater openings, museum shows, outdoor events, summer reading series and more that will help you plot out the next few months of your life.

So heat up the grill and pour yourself a cold one. We hope you’ll find something that will brighten your summer within these pages.

-Allen Houston, Executive Editor of Manhattan Media

Music
Top 10 Concerts
Reading Summer Film
Film
Best June Events for Kids
Cultural Events & Festivals
Hamptons Events
Celebrity Summer Guide
Out of Town
Summer Reading Series
Theater
Eats & Drinks
Top Food of Summer
Museums
Outdoor
Bike Share
Top Bike Trails
TV Guide

Summer Guide was compiled by Allen Houston, Marissa Maier, Megan Bungeroth, Adam Rathe, Robby Ritaco, Laura Shin, Armond White, Regan Hofmann, Rachel Khona, Angela Barbuti, Sean Creamer, Anam Baig, Andrew Rice, Magdalena Burnham, Doug Strassler, Max Sarinsky, Whitney Casser, Robin Elisabeth Kilmer and Andrew Bartel, Ed Johnson

We walked, Natali, our Yorkie Phin and I, down Prospect Park West after a sunny and relaxing day watching kite flyers and picnickers. As we cleared the corner and started toward 7th, where our car was parked, a familiar smell wafted through the air; a smell that I had almost forgotten existed, having been born in the Midwest and moved to New York.

“That’s a smoker,” I said, licking my lips.

“I think it’s a fireplace,” corrected my wife.

“Nope,” I smiled, nodding. “That’s definitely a smoker.”

I tipped my imaginary hat to the person or persons illegally smoking meat in their backyard and officially clicked my internal clock from winter to summer.

While you can, obviously, smoke meat at any time of year, there is something unmistakably summery about the smell of barbecue. And now, with so many decent barbecue joints here in the city, there’s no reason to leave it to the Midwest and the South.

Now, for a wine to match!

“Wine,” you say. “Wouldn’t you rather have a beer with your ribs?”

Actually, no. I have never understood why beer is so inexorably linked to barbecue. Barbecue is heavy, so what sense does it make to drink something that is, itself, also heavy? In addition to the fullness factor, there are so many red wines that have flavor notes that are so perfectly matched to those in barbecue that it seems a crime not to pair them together.

So let me offer you a couple of wines to pair with a couple different types of regional barbecue (all available at many different places throughout the five boroughs).

Let’s start with a Kansas City-style burnt ends sandwich. This is a smoky beef brisket sandwich slathered in piquant sauce. I can think of no better match up for this behemoth than the Seghesio Zinfandel Sonoma County 2010 ($28.99 at Beacon Wines and Spirits, 2120 Broadway, at 74th St, 212-877-0028). It starts with ripe plum fruit notes and finishes bold with pepper, clove and cinnamon flavors that do battle nicely with any piece of smoked beef you can throw its way.

If you are feasting on the very different, but equally tasty, North Carolina-style pulled pork, you are eating a sauce that is not tomato-based but is, instead, vinegar-based. While vinegar can be a bit of a challenge to match wine with, a perfect flavor pairing for this lighter style of barbecue would be the Willm Riesling Reserve 2011 ($11.95 at Sherry-Lehmann, 505 Park Ave., at 59th Street, 212-838-7500). You heard me right: I am recommending a white wine with barbecued pork.

While Alsatian-style rieslings tend to be a touch less sweet than their German cousins, this particular wine still maintains a touch of residual sugar on the finish. The sweetness will counter the spiciness of the marinade, but the natural acidity of the riesling grape will actually cancel out the overly sour qualities of the vinegar in the sandwich. The pork will taste richer and the smokiness of the sandwich will become the main event.

In St. Louis, it is pork ribs braised in a sweeter sauce that are then returned to the grill that take center stage. I am going to recommend something that may sound crazy, but if you try it, you too will be a convert. Fonseca Ruby Port ($18.99 at PJ Wine, 4898 Broadway, betw. 204th and 207th streets, 212-567-5500) is an unusual but mind-blowing match-up for these sticky, caramelized ribs.

The sweetness from both the port and the ribs will cancel each other out, and you will taste the subtler flavors of the smoky meat and the fruitiness of the port in a way that is impossible should you taste the two independent of one another. Let us also remember that port is a red wine and, like all red wine, has tannins. The tannins will cut through the fattiness of the ribs and make them even more succulent than they were before.

So the next time you hit your favorite barbecue joint here in the city or elsewhere, check out the wine list before you fill up on suds!

Follow Josh on Twitter: @joshperilo.

There is a problem, though. After I sidle through the cafeteria-style line to the register with my burnt ends of brisket on white bread, I inevitably fall into that common barbecue trap. I order a beer. It’s not that I don’t enjoy sipping on a frosty Boulevard Wheat Beer whenever I’m in the KC area. It’s that by the time I’ve finished two-thirds of my sandwich, I’ve inevitably drained my mug of suds and am ready to burst.

I have never understood why beer is inexorably linked to grilled or smoked foods. Barbecue is heavy, so what sense does it make to drink something that is, itself, also heavy? Even a “light” beer will still sit heavier in your gullet than a glass of the darkest, densest red wine. In addition to the fullness factor, there are so many red wines that have flavor notes that are so perfectly matched to barbecue that it seems a crime not to pair them together. Being that it is the season of the grill and smoker, I submit that the next time you partake in the ‘cue try a little vino instead of a six-pack.

Let’s start with that burnt ends sandwich. A KC barbecue staple, this shredded and slathered beef sandwich is smoky, heavy and piquant. I can think of no better match up for this behemoth than the Seghesio Zinfandel Sonoma County 2007 ($26.99 @ Beacon Wines and Spirits, 2120 Broadway at 74th St., 212-877-0028). A good, spicy Zin is a great match up for barbecue, but the Seghesio is in a class by itself. It starts with ripe plum fruit notes and finishes bold with pepper, clove and cinnamon flavors that do battle nicely with any piece of smoked beef you can throw its way.

If you are feasting on the very different, but equally tasty, North Carolina-style pulled pork, you are eating a sauce that is based on vinegar, rather than tomato. While vinegar can be a bit of a challenge to match wine with, a perfect flavor pairing for this lighter style of barbecue would be the Willm Riesling Reserve 2007 ($10.95 @ Sherry-Lehman, 505 Park Ave. at 59th St., 212-838-7500). Yes, a white wine with barbecued pork. While Alsatian-style Rieslings tend to be a touch less sweet than their German cousins, this particular wine still maintains a bit of residual sugar on the finish. The sweetness will counter the spiciness of the marinade, but the natural acidity of the Riesling grape will actually cancel out the overly sour qualities of the vinegar in the sandwich. The pork will taste richer and the smokiness of the sandwich will become the main event.

In St. Louis, pork ribs are braised in a sweeter sauce, then returned to the grill. I am going to recommend something that may sound crazy, but if you try it, you too will be a convert. Fonseca Ruby Port ($16.99 @ PJ Wine and Spirits, 4898 Broadway, betw. 204th and 207th streets, 212-567-5500) is an unusual, but mind-blowing match up for these sticky, caramelized ribs. The sweetness from the port and ribs cancel each other out, and you will taste the subtler flavors of the smoky meat and the fruitiness of the port in a way that is impossible when tasting the two independently. Let us also remember that port is a red wine and, like all red wine, it has tannins. The tannins will cut through the fattiness of the ribs and make them even more succulent than they were before.

I have yet to find out Arthur Bryant’s BYOB policy, but rest assured that the next trip I take to Kansas City, I’ll be armed with my own refreshment.

josh@pennilessepicure.com