Eat Here Now: Urban Space Garment District

most of you have probably heard of Madison Square Eats or Broadway Bites, or have at least seen them on your instagram feeds. if for some reason you have absolutely no idea what i'm talking about, Urban Space is a company that hosts small food festivals/markets, like Madison Square Eats. at these markets are usually some of the best restaurants in the city, as well as some small food companies who don't have storefronts. there are two of these festivals going on right now- one is Madison Square Eats, and the other is Urban Spaces Garment District. i'm not too sure why the Garment District one doesn't have a cute and catchy name like the rest of them, but the food offered is definitely just as incredible. 

Batter & Cream

here are some mini handmade whoopie pies-from left to right, fig honey goat cheese, s'mores, banana caramel, cookies & cream, and another s'mores. i was really excited to try these, but they ended up being a bit strange. the texture is different from that of a regular whoopie, and some of the flavors didn't really stand out- like the cookie in the cookies & cream, or the honey in the fig honey goat cheese. 

Brooklyn Wok Shop

these garlic chive & mushroom dumplings were insanely delicious. the skin was very thin, and had the perfect texture- soft and not too chewy. they were full of mushrooms, and had tons of flavor from the garlic and chives, but somehow didn't leave me smelling like garlic for the rest of the day. the sauce on top was like soy sauce with a lot more depth. definitely stop by the Brooklyn Wok Shop stand when you're here.

Café Patoro

this small shop sold only the warm, cheesy, brazillian snack known as pão de queijo. they're basically little pillows of cheese, with just enough flour in them to be considered a bread. the flavors above are original, pesto, and sundered tomato. they all had good flavor, but i found that the original had the best texture. i wish they had been a bit warmer, but other than that, i would definitely recommend picking up a bag of three original pão de queijo to walk around with. 

Wafels & Dinges

we've all had a warm, crunchy-on-the-outside-chewy-on-the-inside liege wafel, with melty speculoos spread settling in its crevices from wafels & dinges. well this ice cream was speculoos flavored, with chunks of softened speculoos cookies. sort of like a speculoos cookies and cream. the guy working at the stand also added some speculoos spread on top of the ice cream as a "geeft." do not leave here without eating this ice cream cone. it is spicy and sweet and creamy and speeculoos-y and is everything you love about speculoos or cookie butter or biscoff or whatever you want to call it.

heres sarah holding the almighty ice cream cone and taking a picture of me taking a picture of her

Domo Taco

 here was our quesadilla, with grilled lemongrass chicken, monterey jack and cheddar cheeses, and guacamole, topped with sesame crema. the lemongrass chicken was really lemon-y, obviously, and the cheeses were strong, and really stood out. the guac was so good- so much flavor, and the perfect chunky to creamy ratio. all together, the flavors of the not-so-traditional quesadilla cheese and the lemongrass chicken were kind of weird, but i actually enjoyed how different it was from a regular quesadilla.

heres brenda being cute with our unique quesadilla

The Baking Bean

i was beyond exciting to find a little stand called the baking bean, because me and my two best friends call ourselves the beans, and i love to bake! we picked up a homemade pumpkin pop-tart while we were there, and oh my gosh, it was so good. the pastry crust was so buttery and flaky, and the icing on top had that crackly top that gave way to the soft, vanilla-y, cinnamon-y interior. the filling actually tasted like real pumpkin and brown sugar, not just pumpkin pie spices. i will definitely be getting another one of these soon. 

this is me standing in front of the baking bean stand, awkwardly smiling down at one of their business cards

The Poffertjtes Man

I JUST CANNOT FIND THE WORDS TO DESCRIBE THESE RIGHT NOW. oh my gosh they were insane. these should be the reason you go to urban space garment district RIGHT NOW. sorry about the caps. anyways, we walked up to this booth, and a woman is flipping these mini dutch

pancakes to golden perfection. naturally, we order fifteen of them. as soon as they come off the griddle, they are spread with butter that immediately melts over them all, and then sprinkled with powdered sugar. next, they're drizzled with nutella. each pancake is buttery and crispy and hot and sweet and drenched in chocolate-hazelnut perfection. basically what im saying is you need these in your life.

while eating our mini pancakes, these adorable, chunky little french bulldogs came by in a wagon, and somehow made my life even better.