NYC Food Film Festival @ Water Taxi Beach South Street Seaport

I mentioned the NYC Food Film Festival before and my plans to attend.  HB & SpB decided to accompany me.  We headed there early on Wednesday (the 17th) to beat the crowds, and good thing we did!  We snagged a totally awesome table, and early on, the free food just kept coming out, which meant we COULD have easily filled up on corn dogs and fried cheese curds (OMG!), but we’re nice people – and trying not to blimp up – so we kept it at 1-2 corn dogs a person.

While I held down our table, HB & SpB grabbed beer, then ordered fries.  They took a corn dog while they were waiting… and waiting… and waiting!  I’m not sure why it took nearly 20 minutes to get these fries – it was pretty ridiculous – and $3 for such a small serving is kind of weak.  But they were good… not the best fries ever, but still, pretty good.

One of the cool things about Water Taxi Beach South Street Seaport (WTB SSS) was the (free) condiments bar.  I was unable to take a picture because it was mobbed by the time I remembered, but there were like 8 different sauces – ketchup, chipotle ketchup, pineapple ketchup, mustard, honey mustard, spicy mustard, wasabi ginger, tartar sauce, … maybe more?, and then pickles, pickle relish, tomato slices, jalapeno slices, diced onions, etc. all for you to top your purchases with, regardless of what you bought.

While HB & SpB were waiting for the fries, I noticed this, towards the entrance, next to the Skee Ball machines (!!!).  Do you see the sign I’m staring at?

Draft root beer!  w00t I love root beer!  There’s even a choice.  I told the lady to give me the one she liked better, even though it turned out I’d had it before.  All good – I liked it.  I liked the $1 popcorn, so I ordered that, too.  The cool thing about that was…

Complimentary popcorn seasonings!  From left to right – kettle corn, caramel, white cheddar, nacho cheese, and truffled sea salt.  I was a little sad to see that such a fun venue, the one that had clearly been used the most was the snooty truffled sea salt.  Can you guess which one I chose?

None of the above!

Yeah, the popcorn isn’t huge, but it’s fun to be able to buy a little bit of popcorn for $1 and share with your friends.  The root beer was nice and tart.

So this is my first, official, real corn dog.  (Remember SpB tried to break that last time at Hagi?  This time was satisfactory to her tastes.  The corn dog was really good actually – this is what I wanted a corn dog to taste like.  Crispy outside, with a slightly yielding corn muffin inside, then a burst of savory meat juices from the hot dog.  Slightly sweet corn part.  I liked it and ate 2 for the night 😉

Next up came the cheese curds!  Don’t mind the small portion; the girl serving kept coming over to our table and gladly giving us more.  These were slightly salty, chewy, delicious, deep fried nuggets of joy.  I wonder where I can find these on a more regular basis in NY!!!  Mmm!!!

The other corn dogs… don’t they look all nice and happy?  Little do they know they’re about to be DEVOURED!!!  hahaha.

HB decided she wanted to eat more than just corn dogs and cheese curds for the night (good call, because… yeah, you can’t subsist on corn dogs alone!), so we opted to get 3 Motz burgers.  Mmm.  Slider size!  Tomato slices underneath (I didn’t realize they came with tomato slices and pickles, so when she went to get the burgers, I went to pick up condiments, and wound up getting lots of tomato slices and pickles, oops! we ate them, though!), a pickle spear, and schnack sauce on the perfectly cooked burger.

I added tomato slices and a dab of tartar sauce (because it contains the things I like on my burger: mayo, pickle [relish], onions).  I have to say, this is a very good burger.  At $6, it might be a little bit on the pricy side, but you don’t care because of where you are – sitting on a fake beach with sand, looking out over the East River… living the good life, I say.

Last but not least was the clam pie, served during/after the screening of a film about clam pie.  It was interesting.  I’m going to try to make my own version soon – probably this winter, as it’s a bit wintry in my mind – but this was like clam chowder in a pie crust.  Good.

One thing I have to note – they announced that they had enough clam pie for everyone, but please only take one serving per person until everyone had been served.  I scoffed that anyone would obey this suggestion – as the place got crowded and food came out, people mobbed the servers and literally seconds later, it would all be gone.  HOWEVER… with the clam pie, people were respectful and though some people did rush over to get first servings, there did seem to be more than enough at the end, and seemingly, everyone who wanted to try it was able to try it.  I thought that was extremely awesome of everyone who was there.

We all had a great time at the festival – it was a free event with a suggested donation of 2 cans of food for the NYC Food Bank – we even got goodie bags to take home (reusable lunch totes, very cute, inside was literature on some of the sponsors and a bag of Pop Chips)!  The films we watched were all very fun and entertaining, some educational as well.  I will definitely be back every year they have this festival!  And I will also definitely be back at WTB SSS just to hang out, have a beer or cocktail, and enjoy some good weather.  Hopefully.  You know, whenever we actually get some of that, y’know.

Psst, deal alert: 50c oysters, clams, shrimp, and drink specials.  Thanks Eater!

Yvo says: The NYC Food Film Festival was a lot of fun and I’d love to go to more of their movies as they do this event, and as my schedule allows.  Well organized and very nicely put together.  Water Taxi Beach South Street Seaport (sorry for not taking pictures of what it looked like!) was a lot of fun as well, Skee Ball, miniature golf, real sand, picnic tables – I will also definitely be back to hang out and enjoy all they have to offer.  Including great food – I want to try their wings!!!
both items recommended

Water Taxi Beach
South Street Seaport
north side of Pier 17

Note: as indicated in the first photograph, the film festival food was free: cheese curds, corn dogs, clam pie.  We paid for the fries, burgers, popcorn, beers/root beer, ourselves.  Curiously, when I asked for a bottle of water, I was told that was free as well, which is totally cool.  Think it might have been because of SpB though 😉