#SHUCKOFF – The Shuck and Suck

This was my first time to Water Taxi Beach – what a great event space. I wonder what else they have here over the summer? If there’s any foodie events going on here, please let me know when they’re coming up and I will go to them.

I had a pretty good time at the #Shuckoff. I don’t think people really picked up on the hashtag, though. Jenny Miller suggested #shuckup.

“How’d you like the oysters last night, Jenny?

“Dude. There were bacon wrapped oysters, oysters in grits, all you can eat oysters with a to-die-for mignonette. I had so many, man … I was totally #shuckedup.”

Yeah, much better in past tense. We’ll stick with shuckoff.

And yes, I did say Bacon-Wrapped oysters. Since I don’t have a picture of these guys, I will just tell you that the server didn’t get five steps into the crowd before she was out of these bad boys. I expected as much, and since they weren’t getting cold being paraded around the beach, they were always hot and tasty. I’ll bet we saw half of what was made because if I was making these, most of them wouldn’t make it out of the kitchen.

Look at this beauteousness:

Them’s some good looking oysters. We had shuckers brought in from some country south of us and they were experts. It looks like the guy on the left has a day job in construction.

Both of these guys were some nasty shuckers – They would have destroyed the competition if given the shot. I talked with Brad from Double Crown/Public, and he liked his chances. He was pumped to show off his new menu the next evening, so he got me excited for that. He’s got a lot of what they served on his menu, the Sunday night at Double Crown has been called the best bang for your buck in NYC by a good friend of mine with an expert palate. I haven’t been, but I’m going to look for an opening in the sched soon.

The Oysters in grits were kind of meh. The fresh oysters – I was pretty conservative with my intake, but my favorite were the Malpecs. I couldn’t describe these for you versus the others, but they were bigger.

Of course, my favorite things were the Bacon-Wrapped Oysters, but they also had these strikingly green, grilled hot peppers with olive oil and sea salt. I must have had three dozen of these guys. My pictures of these all came out blurry, partially due to the amazing Tequila drink that the Fun, Fearless Foodie was slinging at me all night. The stuff was incredible – I will get the recipe and post it here later.

On to the #shuckoff! Here are the contestants: Brad, Betsy from Salvtore Brooklyn and Jimmy from Jimmy’s 43.

The object of the match was to get to 24 oysters first. One person shucks, one eats. They even had card girls.

I was surprised at how entertained I was watching people open and eat oysters. It was a good time, but one team ended up running away with it (Jimmy’s – He told me he was going to crush the competition in the beginning). It got vicious in there – here’s Brad’s towel after the #shuckoff ended:

Now that’s a trooper.

I went to the second night – Brad Farmerie’s Southeast Asian Street Food Market. The food was more diverse, the Num Pang sliders were LEGIT, the Pig’s Blood Popsicles were similarly awesome, and I was surprised by the Squid Chips. They tasted like pork cracklins, but black and made of squid. Solid.

I met Katy Keffer (PR Lead) on the subway and told her I probably wasn’t going to stick around for any of the films, but she convinced me to stay for a few, so I went in and found a chair. The film about the pig’s blood popsicles had just ended, and a new one from Fried Chillies started. It was goddamn terrible. It was the caliber of my first foray into filmmaking in 24 in 24: Boston but completely devoid of humor and too long. I guess there’s two people doing this show, and the guy is much more dynamic, but it was still boring. I left.

I actually have tickets to the edible adventure tonight, but the films are going to be an afterthought. Maybe I saw the two worst films of the show, because there are some good ones, and there are certainly great ones; but these … these were bad. The food, however was fantastic, and it’s a great value for what you get (if you can drink or pack down oysters, and I’m fairly proficient at both). I’m looking forward to the Pig Ear Sandwich tonight!

Come for the food, hope for better films than the ones I saw.

Disclaimer: I received a press pass to cover this event. I don’t know if you are required to say that, but I figure that if I get anything for free, I’ll tell you.