[Review'd] Dekalb Market!

In New York City these days, food markets are a dime-a-dozen and it seems like there are new ones popping up all the time. In late May, we were introduced to the Smorgasburg Food Market up in Williamsburg. Two weeks back we got the first monthly Food Truck Rally at Grand Army Plaza.

This past weekend brought the opening of Dekalb Market, an outdoor market that's located directly outside of the Dekalb Ave subway stop.

The market space was designed by the British company Urban Space, who've put together a number of seasonal and temporary markets throughout NYC. This is their first permanent installation in the U.S. and what makes it different from their other projects is that the market's mostly made up of repurposed shipping containers that twenty-two local businesses will call home for at least the next year.

It's a pretty amazing design and with a picnic area in the middle, a bunch of vendors set up on one side of the containers, urban gardens set up on the other & a full calendar of events such as Saturday's "Teen Battle Chef" competition, the market's got a lot to offer.

Roughly half of the market's vendors sell food. I'm nothing if not obsessed with food, so on Saturday I headed down there shortly after noon to catch some of the opening day festivities and try a bunch of the food.

Since I was still trying to wake my ass up when I arrived, I started with an flavorful iced coffee ($2.50) from Joe, a cafe with a bunch of Manhattan locations. They hawk all manners of joe alongside scones and cookies and the like.

I hadn't had a bite to eat all day either, so I went the breakfast route & paired my iced joe with a half-dozen tiny donuts from Cuzin's Duzin ($2). They’re fresh, warm & a little bigger than a silver dollar & as they're sprinkled with powdered sugar, they taste a hell of a lot like funnel cake.

While I didn't try their "Mama Made Lemonade," which was basically a small bucket full of lemonade with a straw in it, I saw a ton of people walking around with them throughout the afternoon.

Once I'd finished off my tiny donuts, I needed a quick break before continuing to fill up on food, so I headed over to the far right side of the market to check out the urban gardens, which are run by five different organizations.

It's kind of weird to see corn and shit growing in the city but I guess that once we hit peak oil and the food distribution system collapses, they'll be ahead of the game, so good for them.

I still had a good amount of iced coffee left at this point, so I decided to head over to Robicelli's Cupcakes to get a cupcake to enjoy with the rest of it. I know that we here at FIPS are sort of on Robicelli's jock but I'm going to add to that tradition by mentioning that of all the containers there, theirs was the best designed.

They left the entire container intact, utilizing the front doors to create colorful signage for the space. The inside is all one bold blue color & well...it’s just well done.

As for their treats, they always have a rotating line-up of cupcakes with a few whoopie pies and brownies thrown in the mix. I've been hearing of their "Chicken & Waffles" cupcake ($4.65) for some time now but had yet to experience it, so I opted for that.

While all the components of it--the frosting, the cake & the piece of chicken--were quite tasty, my mouth just wasn't big enough to get all three ingredients in at once without making modifications to the cupcake.

From there, I walked around the market for a while and at one point, stopped at the booth for Zoe's Premium, whose slogan is "people food for dogs." With a slogan like that, my first question (as I glanced down at the samples) was "so I could eat this stuff?"

The cute gal working the booth explained that it didn't have all the salts & whatnot that humans crave but yeah...I could eat it. She gave me a few samples of the turkey cassoulet to bring home to my brother's pooches (who I was sitting for the weekend). They ate that shit up faster than you can say "starving children in Africa." I kid though. There’s nothing wrong with dogs eating better quality food.

So...remember how it was a million degrees out this weekend? That meant that as soon as I was done with my iced coffee, I needed another cold beverage STAT. It was too early to get a $5 beer from the "Water/Red Bull/Beer" shipping container at the edge of the picnic table area, so I got a pickle brine spiked lemonade ($4) from Sour Puss Pickles.

While it was ok at first and it did do the job of keeping me cool as I explored the rest of the market, the combo of lemon & pickle brine was RIDICULOUSLY tart and in that heat, by the end of the cup I was struggling to finish it.

They’ve got salads & sandwiches too, but I wanted to sample another vendor’s wares & the shipping container right next door--Mrs. Dorsey's Kitchen--was selling a variety of gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches.

I got the "A.B.C." ($7), a grilled cheese made with cinnamon toasted bread, apples, bacon & cheddar.

It took a while for them to make it but according to the girl working the window, this is their first day in their first physical locale, so I'll cut them some slack. The sandwich itself was a nice mixture of sweet and salty but may not have been the best choice for such a scorching hot day. It also made it so that I was so full that I couldn't eat another thing after it.

Of the food vendors I didn't get a chance to sample, there's:

Cheeky Sandwiches, an LES business that serves NOLA-style sandwiches. I strongly considered getting their chicken sandwich, which features fried chicken on a buttermilk biscuit with coleslaw & gravy but thought it might be a bit much for that early in the day.

Nile Valley Juice & Salads, who had juices & pastries on Saturday and will be adding salads to their offering very shortly.

The Tea Box, who have a dozen teas, including something called a "golden monkey black tea." I'm not sure I'd want that, but I could really do with a golden monkey, specifically one of the "helper" variety.

Wooly's Ice, who sell a shave ice that they described to me as "a fusion of Taiwanese & Hawaiian styles." It's got fruit and stuff.

Mazie's Bites, who offer "International Soul Food" but in the time I was there, didn't even open their windows.

Manhattan's Pasticcio (an Italian trattoria) & Maharlika (Filipino food) weren't there on Saturday but they'll both be joining the market soon.

...so we're talking a good enough variety of food that you'd have to visit a handful of times to try everything. Given the fact that you'd get to do so in an outdoor space unlike any other in the city, visiting the market a bunch of times doesn't sound like that bad of a plan.

Read way more from Shawn at eatdrinksnack.com.