5 Best Eating and Drinking Events
So many events, so little time. Below are our picks for the best in eating, drinking, and merrymaking around New York City, including a massive music festival, a major BBQ festival, and a celebration of pugs. By Jessica Allen.
For three days, rain or shine, the Governors Island Music Festival transforms Randall's Island into the coolest 400+ acres in all of New York City. This year's featured performers include Childish Gambino, Outkast, and Vampire Weekend. Attendees can also feast on edibles and potables from such vendors as Pok Pok NY, Hot Bread Kitchen, and Momofuku Milk Bar. Friday, June 6, through Sunday, June 7, $230 general admission, tickets required.
FIGMENT is a 100 percent volunteer-run grassroots effort to connect emerging artists and the public. Projects celebrate creativity and imagination, and they're always free. This weekend FIGMENT opens for the season and reveals its reveals its mini-golf course, treehouse, dream pavilion, and participatory art installations on Governors Island. Can't make the celebration on Saturday or Sunday? No worries: the projects will stay up through September 21. Saturday, June 7, and Sunday, June 8, 10 am to 6 pm, free.
For the 12th year in a row, restaurateur Danny Meyer and friends will make Madison Square Park the city's epicenter of barbecue. Renowned pitmasters like Mike Mills from Illinois, Scott Roberts from Texas, and Chris Lilly from Alabama will be on hand. It's free to attend (and to smell), but plates of the good stuff will run about $9. If you can't stand the lines, buy a FastPass for $125 or a BigPiggin' VIP Pass for $265. Saturday, June 7, and Sunday, June 8, 11 am to 6 pm, free.
Some might say Alice Austen had three great loves in her life: photography (she took more than 8,000 photos in her lifetime), her companion, Gertrude Tate, and pugs. Annual Pug Fun Day celebrates love #3 at Austen's childhood home on Staten Island, and all kinds of dogs and their human companions are welcome. Events include a Fun Pug Judging contest, with prizes for the cutest, best, and funniest outfit. Proceeds go to the Pug Dog Club of Greater New York. Sunday, June 8, 10 am to 5 pm, free.
A New York tradition for 14 years, the Egg Rolls & Egg Creams Festival celebrates Chinese and Jewish culture on the Lower East Side. You can immerse yourself in the mysteries of mah jongg, try your hand at traditional calligraphy, take a tour of the Eldridge Street Synagogue, learn rudimentary phrases in Yiddish and Chinese, watch Chinese acrobatics and opera, dance to klezmer music, and marvel at the melting pot that is this neighborhood. Sunday, June 8, 12 pm to 4 pm, free.
