Phuket Vegetarian Festival

You’ve heard the names Joey Chesnut and Kobayashi for years. Their world series is pounding down hot dogs in the bottom of the BK on July 4th for Nathan’s 2016 Hot Dog Eating Contest. You should go watch it. It looks something like the above just live and in crazy motion. I promise you’ve never seen people eat food this fast. I’d suggest getting yourself a dog prior to the madness because after you see how they dip and slurp those poor wieners you might be of mind to skip the Nathan’s famous. Good news is, there is plenty more to do down in Coney Island pre and post eat off. Make a day. Hang old school Brooklyn style. 12 noon on July 4th in Brooklyn.

Brooklyn Brewery is seemingly involved in everything. There’s not a weekend where we don’t see them at some awesome event, concert or happening. Their main home being 8 blocks from FTHQ gives us incredible access to their next moves like the launch of Brooklyn Brewery Mash. Taking themselves on the road, pop-up collab style, the guys and girls over at BB decided to mini-tour some of our countries best eating cities and smash it together with their brews. The micro-event format includes events like a free concert at the Philly landmark Union Transfer or rare beer and Chinese food mashup between Brooklyn Brewery Chef Andrew Gerson and the team from Bing Bing Dim Sum. This gives us an HUGE excuse to head to Philly. August 25th – 28th in Philadelphia.

When it comes to my own personal #omgdessertgoals (don’t worry, I didn’t know about that hashtag either), I’m all about the scene from Home Alone 2 with Kevin McCallister kicking it at the Plaza Hotel in a big bed surrounded by an insane spread of sweet treats and his own personal human ice cream scooper/butler gamely serving him not one, not two, but THREE scoops of ice cream. The scene is enough to make any dessert lover swoon, but let’s face it: we all don’t have access to Mr. McCallister’s credit card. And to be honest, our preferences for the sweet stuff tend to be, shall we say, a little more advanced than those of a 10-year-old from 1992. But luckily for us, Dessert Goals – NYC Dessert Fest is here to make our wildest 2016 dessert dreams come true, recommended hashtags included. The very first event of its kind, it includes a dessert photo garden, a photo booth, unlimited Intelligentsia coffee, and — oh yeah — some of the best of the best confections from NYC’s five boroughs, including sustainable ice cream sandwiches, Twinkie-inspired “cakies,” and bittles, otherwise known as cake bites infused with some of our fave breakfast cereals. Wait, what were we saying about our sophisticated adult palates…? Yeah, let’s table that convo until after the fest. October 23 in Brooklyn.

It’s hard to imagine what Essex Street looked like 76 years ago given the modern, melange of current architecture, boutiques and posh players drapping the concrete beat. The gold pineapple doesn’t help this reverie. I’m not sure this matters much except the fact that there is some history to this party. 76 years to be precise. The Essex Street Market is celebrating its 76 years with a true neighborhood throwdown. The whole ‘hoods in on it. Ice & Vice are even dropping a specialty flavor. If you are the historic type, Turnstile Tours has you covered. Just don’t get all tenement hood on us. Saturday, May 21 from 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM in NYC