Your local Shake Shack burger probably isn’t served with pickled bamboo and green chili relish. But at EEEEEATSCON NYC, these culinary crossovers are the rule, not the exception.
Hosted by The Infatuation — one of the nation’s most prominent dining publications — the food festival returned for its fifth year on Oct. 12 and 13 at Forest Hills Stadium in Queens. From juicy smash burgers to jollof rice, EEEEEATSCON NYC 2024 offered dishes from 28 establishments — New York City fan-favorites like L’industrie Pizzeria and Milk Bar made appearances, along with Chinatown classic Nom Wah, rising West Village Thai spot Sappe and a few out-of-state restaurants.
In true EEEEEATSCON fashion, the festival was star-studded with actors including Sofia Vergara and “The Bear’s” Matty Matheson, along with food industry legends like Christina Tosi, the founder of dessert chain Milk Bar. But unlike previous years, EEEEEATSCON NYC 2024 offered several unique culinary collaborations — Cloudy Donut Co. and Sugar Hill Creamery, Potluck Club and Great NY Noodletown and weirdly enough, Shake Shack and Thai Diner.
One collaboration at this year’s festival was between Manhattan Chinatown favorites Potluck Club and Great NY Noodletown, which served up dishes including a Peking pork chop, Hong Kong-style wonton noodles and fried mantou buns. Together, the restaurants combine two different facets of New York Chinese cuisine — the trendy, slightly upscale energy of Potluck Club and the mom-and-pop atmosphere of Great NY Noodletown.
The Peking pork chop was incredibly tender and melt-in-your-mouth succulent. The Hong Kong-style wonton noodles, which featured a traditional egg noodle, could have used more chili sauce, but the plump wontons’ soft-boiled wrapper created the perfect pillow for the sauce — a match made in heaven for the pork and shrimp filling. The fried mantou buns — a soft Chinese fried bread resembling brioche — were topped with peanut sprinkles and a black sesame dulce de leche glaze. The saltiness of the black sesame and the earthiness of the peanuts paired well with the airy bread’s delicate sweetness, making for a uniquely well-rounded dessert.
The festival also featured Cloudy Donut Co. and Sugar Hill Creamery’s “G.W. Carver’s Wildest Dream” — a sweet potato pound cake with vegan Ethiopian coffee ice cream, housemade vegan sweet potato caramel and a brulee tuile.
Perhaps most notably, Shake Shack’s collaboration with Thai Diner — a trendy SoHo restaurant known for its Thai take on American dishes — beefed up a classic Shack Burger with “evil jungle prince Shack Sauce,” Thai basil, pickled bamboo and green chili relish. The Thai-inspired burger follows Shake Shack’s Korean-Style Fried Chick’n kimchi burger — perhaps a sign of the fast food chain’s trend of Asian-inspired dishes.
While the restaurant collabs were a highlight of the festival, EEEEEATSCON NY primarily features dozens of solo vendors, like Gotham Burger Social Club, which crafted an exclusive smash burger just for the event. It’s easy for smash burgers to taste the same — greasy beef, melty American cheese and flat buns — but Gotham’s onion bacon jam sent me into a cosmic orbit I didn’t want to come down from. While the size of the burger was as small as a child’s fist, it was still a marvel with its mighty flavor profile. I could’ve skipped the fries — well-salted, but too crispy for my taste — but if the burger was part of Gotham’s regular menu, I’d be going to its Lower East Side location at least twice a week.
Contact Bella Simonte at [email protected].
