The Snack Bowl: Meatopia! BBQ NYC 2011


The entrance to Pier 5

Meatopia started out as a private Birthday Celebration for Food Writer Josh Ozersky, and has, in the past 2 years, blossomed into a full fledged BBQ Festival. With some of the country's greatest chefs sauteing, smoking, grilling, sous viding and butchering every cut of meat from a plethora of animals.

"Which Chefs and Which Animals were available at the 2nd incarnation of MEATOPIA?" you ask? So glad you did! Close to 50 Teams were collected. From traveling BBQ Squads, to World Famous Celeb TV Chefs to High End NYC Restaurant Crews pumping out succulent morsels for the 5 hour event, set on the East River, overlooking NY Harbor. Pier 5 in Brooklyn Bridge Park was the perfect setting for the 2nd year of Meatopia(2010 was set up on Governor's Island, just a stone's throw across the water) Although the festival was set for the majority of the public to enter at 5:30pm and continue til the gut-bustingly generous hour of 9:30, the sun was blazing but heat-be-damned, we plowed through and enjoyed the offerings.

Le Menu du MEAT

This may look daunting...and in many ways it was. But check out this menu/map and see if you're not curious enough to attend next year...with gloves, antacids and bib in tow. I could write pages and pages about this event...from the Singing Chef's of The Meatball Shop proclaiming that their Spicy Lamb Sloppy Joe's will cure all your worldly woes, to the 750lb beef carcass being offered by Pat LaFrieda...it was a meat lover's paradise, both visually and gastronomically.

Some of the food that was sampled this year, which sealed the deal for me to purchase a ticket to enter the 3rd year of Meatopia...

I present my first entry at TheSnackBowl...Meatopia 2011