Atlantic Avenue Street Festival: The Best of the Street Food

Even though I've been in New York for a few years, this was my first year making it to the annual Atlantic Avenue Street Festival. It was a gorgeous late summer day and there was plenty of delicious food from local restaurants to go with the awesome live music on every block! I went with two fellow adventurous foodies and we strategically bought stuff from a number of vendors so we could get a taste of the different offerings. We tried soul food, Mexican food, Middle Eastern food, BBQ and red velvet cake but only not all these foods made the cut so I am only going to share the pictures from the best. Our first stop was soul food. There were blocks of different restaurants and groups selling soul food and we checked out each one before deciding on "The Women from the House of the Lord Church" in Brooklyn. Our decision was based on the long line, the mouth watering look of the macaroni and cheese and well....when don't Churches put on great meals!? We got a set meal with fried chicken, collard greens, corn bread and macaroni and cheese. In the picture below the corn bread is hiding the collard greens. It was delicious except that the corn bread needed more corn flavor.

Our next yummy food purchase was a delicious spinach and cheese pie from the Bedouin Tent. It was baked calzone style and loaded with spinach, onion, spices and mozzarella.  It had been baked until it was golden on top and served warm. With cute Middle Eastern guys serving up this fresh and flavor Jordanian food to Arabian music, what's not to like? The Bedouin Tent is located at 405 Atlantic Avenue and open daily from 11 am to 11 pm.

The winner of the street foods and the best item we tried was at the end of the fair. Just when we thought we might actually be full we saw a long line of eager people waiting at the Salvatore Bklyn stand. "If cheese were a rock star, it'd be Salvatore Bklyn" boasts the company's website. They make two products: whole milk ricotta cheese and whole milk smoked ricotta cheese. They were serving up their celebrity cheese on sandwiches with freshly cut pancetta and delicious cannoli. The sandwich was on rustic Italian bread with the cheese spread generously over it. Then some arugula and a few thin and perfect slices of pancetta that practically melted in your mouth. The whole lot was sprinkled with a bit of pepper and a drizzle of olive oil. The cannoli was great too but paled in comparison to it's savory counterpart. Buy your own ricotta at one of their distributors and create this incredible sandwich.