Harlem EatUp! Festival 2016

There’s been a lot of breakfast for dinner this year and it’s only March. Building on the success of Choice Eats, the Village Voice peeps bring us Brunch Eats. As you’d expect, breakfast is prepared one evening by 20+ top restaurants and bakeries. Your ticket gets you a taste of all of them as well as breakfast cocktails and music. Note on the cocktails, since breakfast IS at dinner time, the 2 mimosa rule is lifted allowing you to indulge as if it was dinner time. Wait…it is dinner. If it’s anything like Choice Eats this will sell out. Snap your tickets up quick. May 11th from 8pm-10pm @ the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in NYC.

Washing down a big bite of food with a comparable gulp of wine has long been a top pastime of the whole FT Crew. So much so that we’ve come to know the difference between a 2 Buck Chuck and a grape grown in Montalcino. Although they both have a place in our wine cellar (read closet), learning more never hurts. The Brooklyn Wine Fest does this learning thing in the non-snooty, approachable, fun kind of way. I guess you’d expect this from a Brooklyn born wine festival but the legacy of stodgy wine makers is still a hard ship to turn. The organizers have broken these stalwarts down and curated a producers list that will make everyone punchdrunk happy. In addition to the 50+ wineries repping their grape juice there’s some on point food to help coat that belly. Heavy hitters like the Mac Truck, Luke’s Lobster and the Brooklyn Oyster Party, just to name a few, will help you savor every wine wheel tagged sip. Time management alert, the day is broken up into two sessions. (12-4 and 5:30-9) Our advice is, BIG brunch, go early, pace yourself, no spitting and stay until the sun is gone. You’ll be fine. Enjoy yourself and stop by Dandelion Wines post fest to try your new knowledge out. Lily and team will be waiting to help. Saturday, October 28th from 12-9:30 in Brooklyn.

As newish Queens residents, Bushwick is our Brooklyn backyard and they just kicked a ball over the fence that we need to bring back to those hipster kids. That ball looks like Taste of Bushwick, strutting into its 6th year, bringing such a strong line up that we just pasted the whole food linkage below. Archie’s Bar + Pizza, BKE Kombucha, Brooklyn Cider House, Brooklyn Crafted, Bushwick Food Cooperative, Bushwick Grind, City Bear BK, Dock Asian Eatery, Elisa’s Love Bites, Fine & Raw Chocolate, Glazed & Confused, Guadalupe Inn, GuS Soda, House Of Kava, House of Yes, Interboro Spirits & Ales, Kings County Brewers Collective (KCBC), Le Garage, Pine Box Rock Shop, Precious Metal, Queen of Falafel, Sally Roots, The Sampler, Sazon Nuñez, Sea Wolf, Sey Coffee, Superlost Coffee, Syndicated, Tito’s Handmade Vodka, Tony’s Pizzeria & Restaurant, The V-Spot. That list fully covers every food base there is except maybe the Aperol Spritz itch (Mixed reviews. Thumbs down. Thumbs up.) but they have been banned in Bushwick since 2015 anyway. If that’s not enough for one day, the after party rolls on at Pine Box Rock Shop after nine. Slow your roll and hang with the cool kids until way past your Upper East Side bed time. June 10th from 5:30-9pm in Brooklyn at The Brooklyn Cider House.

No ideas what you’re doing in for the middle day of Memorial Day Weekend. Look no further. What’s more memorial than a hotdog show down with beer? That’s totally rhetorical. Frankly we’re not sure why you are even still reading this. Go get tickets. Now. Buy one for your friend who will inevitably call you Sunday morning, lost, asking what to do. You really are a deliberator. Fine. Craft Beer and Hot Dog Showdown tickets include unlimited eating of gourmet hot dog creations, voting rights, free entry to the food fest after party and guaranteed belly full of yummy. Sneak peek of the dogs on the tickets page. Sunday, May 29th from 12:00 to 4:30 in NYC.