Meatopia

Today we went to Governor's Island for the first time - for Meatopia! We met J&J from Mr. D's office at the ferry building to take the boat across to Governor's Island, and made it onto the 11:00 ferry, which meant we got there with time to spare for the 11:30 kick-off time. Disaster. When we got to the ticket booths, we realized that the line was longer for people who had pre-purchased tickets, than for the cash line. Umm, and the people who bought them on-site didn't have to pay a service charge. AND since it was taking so long, they stopped IDing people in the pre-order line, so we had to go to the cash line (which was empty at the time) to get our wristbands. Fail, Meatopia, fail.

The rest of Meatopia was not a fail. I cannot help but compare it to the Big Apple Barbecue, though the events were really very different. Big Apple Barbecue was restaurants from around the country bringing the foods that they make every day, but Meatopia was really about New York chefs creating barbecue, whether it was something they made every day, or something they created for the event. Another fun part of the event was that the chefs were the ones actually cooking at the event, so you were able to see chefs like Jonathan Waxman and Amanda Freitag, who are on TV all the time, working the grill and they actually handed you the food.

The food - soo good. We started out with delicious smoked duck tacos, and wound our way through the tents eating for a while, then we went over to the "beer garden" (read: tents set up behind ropes) and rested in the shade, sitting on a blanket I had brought while enjoying some cold ones. The we realized we should improve upon our planning, and went out in search of more food, which we brought back to the beer garden and ate with our cold ones. YUM!